Mario VS Sonic: Mushroom Kingdom Madness!
by Yoshevil
Summary: My first shot at online superstardom...and,no this doesn't have ANYTHING to do with the 2012 winter olympics, nobody wants to read that!Rated k plus to be on the safe side
1. Prologue

Mario Vs. Sonic: Mushroom Kingdom Madness

**So, this is my first go at making fanfictions...hope you like it! I don't own Sonic or Mario at all.**

Prologue: Tales of Time and Space

It was a dark and stormy night in the Mushroom Kingdom. The new Kastle of Koopa had just been completed, and Bowser had stolen the Crystal Stars. Mario knew what he had to do. He set a Bob-omb down in front of the steel door that protected the sinister fortress, and stepped back into the bushes, where his friend Yoshi was hiding.

The weather on Mobius was no different. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails had just finished transforming the seven Chaos Emeralds into the Super Emeralds when Dr. Ivo Robotnik stole the Master Emerald again. Sonic knew that he had to use the power of the Super Emeralds once again. He allowed them to do their job, and hence, changed into Hyper Sonic.

"Wait right here," Sonic told his friends.

"Words to live by," Knuckles joked.

"This will only take a second," Sonic reassured them as he bashed through the steel doors. "Hey, Egghead!" Sonic taunted, knowing Robotnik could hear him through security cameras. "Catch me… if you can!"

"You ready, Yoshi?" Mario asked.

Yoshi gave a grunt that showed that he was scared, but would help anyway.

"Don't worry, we've done this a thousand times!" Mario reassured his dinosaur friend.

With that, they entered the castle. Inside, they saw gigantic statues and pictures of Bowser. This came to Mario as no surprise, since he knew that if Bowser's cunning was as great as his ego, the evil turtle would be invincible.

"No welcoming committee?" Mario teased. "Well, guess that means that there must be a trap upstairs. Let's go disappoint them!"

Sonic flew up the stairs, zooming at the speed of light. When he reached the top, he saw a small army's worth of robots. Sonic knew how to take care of them in one blow.

"_Light attack!_" he yelled.

Once Mario and Yoshi reached the top of the stairs, they saw all seven Koopalings waiting for them in ambush.

"You know what, Yoshi?" Mario asked as he looked towards Yoshi. "I think that it's time to use one of those Starmen!" Yoshi gave out a grunt in agreement as he took off one of his boots and took out a hidden Starman.

While all of his siblings hid in their shells, Morton asked, "Why are you glowing? Shining? Lit up? Imitating a Christmas light? Emitting photons of light?"

Ludwig, still in his shell, said, "I tought him zat vun!"

Mario easily rammed through Morton with no effort at all.

"Yoshi scared!" Yoshi complained. "Yoshi no have fight power! Yoshi no fight Bowser!"

"It's okay, you went a lot farther than usual," Mario told Yoshi. "Good job!" And with that, Mario left to fight Bowser.

"That all you got, Robuttnik?" Sonic taunted. "Really, this whole take over the world scheme of yours that I'm always having to stop is getting real old, real fast… Ever think of trying anything new? Maybe using your talents to solve world hunger or something?"

"Quiet, hedgehog!" Robotnik quirked. "Witness your undoing: the Antimatter Manipulation Ray!"

"Hate to tell you this, Doc," Sonic said sarcastically, "but I was the machine's undoing, not the other way around. Look for yourself!" he continued while pointing up.

"_You fool!"_ Robotnik panicked. _"You destroyed a machine that manipulates the time-space continuum!"_

"Big deal, I've stopped much worse machines then that. Now, are you going to go to prison peacefully, or am I going to have to chase you again?"

"_You don't get it, do you? When you destroy a machine that manipulates the time-space continuum without shutting it down properly beforehand, you create a tear in the very fabric of time and space!"_

"In English?"

"_Look for yourself!"_

Sonic stared in horror at the one thing that not even he could outrun, even at the speed of light…

"Bowser, relinquish the Crystal Stars!" Mario ordered the evil turtle, knowing he would have to force his point.

"_Gwarharhar!"_ Bowser snarled. "Look above you, Mario! The cage that holds the Crystal Stars has a special function: when destroyed, it will create a quantum entity! Gwarharhar!"

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea, I was just quoting Ludwig."

"Okay then, can we get this over with? I told Toad I'd help him improve his kart."

"Gwarharhar! Prepare to witness what a Christmas ham feels like! _Gwarharhar!_"

After a short battle, Mario grabbed Bowser by the tail and threw him into the wall. Bowser bounced off the wall and into the machine. "Mommy!" the spiky shelled turtle whimpered.

"Mamamia…" was all Mario could say as he witnessed a black hole forming…

**Uh-oh...that can't end well for our heroes! Next time: the evil Dr. Robuttnik - I mean, Robotnik meets the evil King Koopa!**


	2. Chapters 1 and 2

Chapter 1: Bad Beginnings  
**Author's Note: Before I continue, I reassure any and all readers that no other chapter will be so pathetically short.**** So, as compensation, I'm feeling generous enough to throw chapter 2 in as well. Enjoy!**

The Kastle of Koopa lay in rubble. All was there, but it was scattered around in many pieces. A strange tower, unfamiliar to Bowser or his style of evil fortresses, also lay in waste, the irreversibly damaged parts mixed in with those of the castle. Bowser was bawling in tears, though he would have never done so if he had known that another being of darkness was watching him at the time.

"I can't believe this!" the giant turtle yelled. "He did it again! *sniffle* I *whimper* can't *whine* accept *sob* another *cry* failure! I don't know where I went wrong. I have superior air troops, land forces, and a better navy then the Mushroom Kingdom, yet I'm defeated by a single plumber time and time again!" Bowser heard something moving, and quickly stopped crying. (He had gotten very good at doing this over the years.)

"No! Pesky hedgehog! Foiled again! I've had whole armies at my knees, and somehow, this, this, rodent manages to defeat me every single time!" said the stupid egghead.

Bowser approached the mad scientist slowly, and roared. Then he laughed and greeted Robotnik. "I couldn't help but overhearing, and it seems like we may be able to help each other."

"Go on, I'm listening…" Ivo said.

As the conversation went on, both villains explained everything that the heroes of their own universe had done to prevent them from taking control of the world numerous times, and how their enormous armies of underlings had fallen to just a single hero and a few sidekicks. Finally, they reached an agreement.

"An alliance, to rid the world of these pests?" Dr. Eggman asked.

Bowser laughed maniacally and replied, "An alliance! Together, our armies will overwhelm Mario and Sonic with sheer numbers, and crush them!"

"Actually, I have a better idea, and we won't even have to wait to build up our armies again!" Robotnik said, and then proceeded to explain his plan to Bowser.

Meanwhile, in the Forest of Illusion, just barely within sight of the ruins of the evil strongholds, another dark figure was watching the whole conversation, one that had been waiting almost a decade for this opportunity. "This is it… Finally, our revenge will be complete!" it said, as it vanished into the shadows.

Chapter 2: Double Deception

Sonic awoke on a hill in the Forest of Illusion and surmised that he must have been unconscious. He stood up, looked around, and realized that he had no idea where he was. He then remembered what had happened.

"The Master Emerald!" Sonic shouted. "It's gone! Robotnik must have taken it!"

Sonic had lost the Chaos Emeralds when he was knocked out. He quickly looked for Miles and Knuckles, knowing that he would need their help.

After finding his friends unconscious, but otherwise fine, he briefly searched the area. Sonic stood in awe when he saw a construction site with thousands of turtles working. "Why do I have the feeling this isn't Mobiüs?" he asked himself sarcastically as he looked at and then rushed over to the construction site.

"What just happened?" Mario asked, finding himself in Princess Toadstool's castle.

"Mario!" Toad shouted, happy to see that his friend was okay. "Glad to see that you're awake. I'll go get the princess."

"Wait… Did I lose to Bowser?" Mario asked, still unsure of what had just happened to him.

"Of course not!" Toad replied. "But when you beat him, his castle must have exploded or something… and… well… I don't really know but-"

"Don't worry, I have the answers you need," said Proffessor Elvin Gadd, a good friend of Mario and Luigi. "It seems that something very rare and amazing happened today," the eccentric genius started off…

Sonic searched the construction site, running around, until he saw a rainbow-haired turtle with a spiked shell riding on a ball who seemed to be giving orders.

"Excuse me, I'm a bit lost," Sonic started out. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, hero of the Freedom Fighters against Robotnik, and I kind of got lost."

The turtle couldn't hear everything, as the construction site was very noisy. "Sonic the what? Freedom Fighters? Woah! You lost _me_ there, I've got no idea what you're talking about," said the turtle. "Hey! Wait a minute! You're a Porcupo! An ugly one, but a Porcupo nonetheless. The name is Lemmy Koopa, but you can call me boss. You need to see Daddy King! I'll show you."

Lemmy, unaware of his father's deal, started talking about his brothers and his sister. He explained to Sonic how things worked there. Lemmy didn't mention anything about Mario, as he thought that Sonic already knew about the war.

"This is your stop," Lemmy said when they had reached a room that had been completed already. "I've got to get back to work, or Daddy King is going to kill me!"

"All right, thanks, I think," Sonic said, disappointed that he had found out all about being part of this Koopa Klan, but none of what he was trying to find out. He walked into the room and saw Bowser talking to nine Porcupos.

"There you are!" said one Porcupo. "Spiny! You're late! What have you been doing?"

"Hey! That isn't Spiny!" said another. "Spiny isn't that tall, and he certainly isn't discolored. There is no way that ugly blue thing is Spiny."

"_You're Sonic!"_ Bowser shouted. He then turned to the Porcupos and smiled. "And as I was saying, all new employees are entitled to hazard pay, free living quarters, and of course, free dental. If you have any questions, take it up with my son, Roy. He'll explain everything."

The Porcupos smiled happily and left. They had no idea why Bowser was acting so nice all of a sudden, but they couldn't care less because they were getting hazard pay. Bowser turned to Sonic and smiled.

"I've heard great things about you," Bowser started out, "and we really could use the help of a great hero. Allow me to explain…"

Bowser spun a lie with great detail. He told of the many times that the Koopa Klan had fallen to the tyrant of the Mushroom Kingdom known as Peach, with her army lead by the evil General Mario. By time Bowser was finished, Sonic saw nothing he could do, but help...

Gadd had led Mario into his lab, which had recently been relocated to the castle, and into a presentation room.

"You'll have to excuse this, I only had a few hours in which to program this," Gadd said as he picked up a remote control and pressed a button. After about two seconds, a hologram of many swirling masses of energy filled the entire room.

"This is a model of the multiverse," the professor began, "and this is the universe you are from."  
Gadd pointed to a universe and it zoomed in, showing the Milky Way, then the Solar System, then Earth itself.

"What does this have to do with what happened to me earlier today?" Mario asked.

"Don't rush into things!" Gadd scolded Mario. "You'll still be young when I finish." He touched the holographaic Earth and the hologram resumed the form of the multiverse. The professor then touched another universe and the Mushroom Kingdom was visible.

"This is where we are now. When you fought with Bowser, things must have gotten too rough, and you broke a machine that manipulated the time-space continuum. This created a black hole at that exact point in time and space."

On cue, a black hole replaced the picture of the Mushroom Kingdom.

"Mamamia!" Mario yelled. "Wait a minute, back up. If I made a black hole, wouldn't we all be inside of it right now?"

"No, because that was only one of two black holes that now exist at the same exact point in time and space."

"Two things in the same place at the same time?! How is that possible? I knew I should have gone to a four-year college, but no, my income wouldn't allow anything more then a two-year course!"

"They are in separate dimensions! They exist in two separate universes. One sucked things up from a universe known as Mobiüs and shot out the contents into the second black hole, formed here in the Mushroom Kingdom."

"Mobiüs? Where's that?"

"Right here, but in a different universe," said a man with an icepack on his head. "My name is Doctor Ivo Robotnik, and I'm from Mobiüs myself."

"The name is Mario, pleasure to meet you," the heroic plumber said.

"Are you ready for _my_ presentation yet, Professor?" Robotnik asked.

"Any time you are."

The professor handed Robotnik the remote, and Robotnik pressed some buttons.

"These are terrorists that plague my world," Robotnik said as the holograms showed Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. "Many times I've tried to stop them with my robots, and every time I barely escaped with my life." Robotnik pretended to fall down and said, "I'm sorry, I'm really tired. Traveling through a worm hole can take a lot out of someone, you know. This first one is their leader, Sonic the Hedgehog. This next one is a fox capable of flight named Miles "Tails" Prower. And this one, lastly, is Knuckles the Echidna, and-" Robotnik stopped and let out a grunt of pain while holding his head as though he had a migrane.

"I'm terribly sorry to trouble you with this, but after all I've heard about you, I figured you might be able to help me out."

"Of course!" Mario agreed. "That's what I do, but you should get some rest. I'll just come back tomorrow. Besides, I'm a bit tired myself."

And with that, both of our heroes were unknowingly ready to help an evil mastermind.

**Wow, Bowser and Robotnik must be good musicians the way Mario and Sonic are getting played! Next time: Both sides hunt for the other side's objects of power!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Welcome to chapter 3, folks! Enjoy!**

Chapter 3: Objects of Power Lost

The next morning was nice and sunny out. Parakarry had already delivered the mail by the time Mario was awake.

Mario wasn't nervous; he never was, not since the very first time when he'd fought Donkey Kong to save his old girlfriend, Pauline. Luigi, however, well, let's just say he didn't get much sleep that night after Mario explained everything. For some reason, Luigi had never got over his fear of evil tyrants, and was always scared of Bowser just as much as he and his brother had been the first time they'd met the dragon-like turtle. Normally, Luigi stayed behind, but Mario figured he would need someone to help him fight off Sonic and the rest of the terrorists from Mobiüs. Normally, Yoshi would go with Mario if no one else, but Yoshi had gone on vacation after he brought Mario back from Bowser's castle. So, Luigi would have to go.

"You usually get by just fine on your own," Luigi complained while Mario tried to pull him out of bed. "And besides, who's going to watch the house?"

"Mamamia, you're stubborn today!" Mario knew his brother couldn't be talked into going on an adventure with a bribe, so Mario thought of something else instead, "Fine then, I'll just show this picture of you to Daisy!" Mario held up a picture of Luigi sucking his thumb while hiding from Bowser.

"She's not even here," Luigi said while holding onto the bed.

"She visits often, you know that," Mario replied. "Besides, it doesn't matter when she sees it."

"Fine, but if I see any more fire-breathing turtles, I'm gone!" Luigi said. "So what happened yesterday, anyway?"

The two of them had breakfast as Mario explained everything that had happened the day before. By noon, the two of them were in the eccentric professor's laboratory. "Welcome, welcome! Good to see the both of you could make it," Gadd greeted them. "Now, Luigi, do you want the presentation, or has Mario filled you in already?"

"Mario already explained everything, just please say I won't have to battle any ghosts," Luigi said, looking at the Poltergust 3000 hanging on the wall.

"After all the ghosts you've fought, I'm surprised that you would be worried about that." Gadd shook his head. "But so much as I know, no, you shouldn't need the Poltergust 3000."

"Greetings, Mario and Luigi," a robotic voice said from the back of the lab. "How goes your travels?"

"FLUDD? Is that you?" Mario asked. "Where are you?"

"I am currently under a sheet, waiting for the professor to finish upgrading me with a program that will allow me to-" FLUDD started out as he was interrupted by his inventor.

"Now come on, FLUDD!" Gadd scolded his machine. "You know that no one, not even the Mario Bros, are allowed to hear about an invention until it is completed."

"I apologize for neglecting protocol," FLUDD responded.

"Think nothing of it, just don't do it in the future," Gadd stated. "Now, where is the doctor? He said that he had something important to tell all of us."

"Where am I?" Tails asked as he awoke to the sound of hammers, buzz saws, and other power tools. He looked around and saw that he was lying on a bed in a room with stone walls. He also saw Knuckles standing by a door.

"Glad to see you're okay," Knuckles told his friend. "We're in a strange dimension known as the Mushroom Kingdom. Sonic met these intelligent turtles called Koopas led by their king, Bowser. Bowser told us that he's been trying to undo a tyrant's grip on the Mushroom Kingdom. This tyrant is a cold-hearted princess named Peach that has a small, yet very powerful army. The main threat is an evil general named Mario."

"Where's Sonic?" Tails asked.

"Looking for the Chaos Emeralds and the Crystal Stars," Knuckles answered.

"The Crystal Stars?" Tails echoed. "What are those?"

"Basically the Chaos Emeralds of this dimension," Knuckles tried to explain. "I don't know much about them, but I do know that they can tilt the tide of battle either way, depending on who holds them. We're only missing three of them."

"Sorry for the delay," Robotnik apologized as he entered the laboratory.

"It's okay," Luigi said. "I'm certainly not in a hurry to give myself a heart attack."

"I had to find as many of these as I could," Robotnik continued as he held up a Chaos Emerald. "I could only find two of them, unfortunately, and the Master Emerald is nowhere to be found!"

"This looks bad," Luigi said, "and I don't even know what a Chaos Emerald is yet!"

"Oh! Yes, that's right, I'm sorry, let me explain," Robotnik started off. "There are seven Chaos Emeralds and a Master Emerald that can negate or multiply their powers. Each Chaos Emerald possesses incredible amounts of energy, and when all seven are used, one can become virtually unstoppable! Luckily, the Master Emerald prevents the Chaos Emeralds from staying together for too a period of time, so Sonic has never been able to fully utilize their effect.

"However, if the Master Emerald _and_ all seven Chaos Emeralds were to be controlled by the same person, I shudder to think of how literal the name 'Chaos Emerald' would become."

"Okie-dokie," Mario said. "So what do we do with these Chaos Emeralds?"

"Well, I'll show you something you can do to help bring Sonic's speed down enough for you to fight him," Robotnik said, and then continued to explain how to activate "Chaos Control".

After that, the two heroes were ready, and left towards the Koopahari Desert.

"What's happening?" Sonic asked, appearing out of a blur as usual, "Tails awake yet?"

"I'm fine, Sonic, but what about the Crystal Stars?" Tails asked. "Knuckles told me you were looking for them along with the Chaos Emeralds."

"No luck in either department," Sonic said. "The Mushrooms must have them, so as soon as we figure out who stays and who goes, we're off!"

"What do you mean 'who stays'?" Knuckles quirked, "Aren't all three of us going?"

"One of us has to stay here and search for Amy," Sonic explained, holding up Amy's Pikopiko hammer. "I found this while looking for the Emeralds in the Forest of Illusion. Tails, you'd probably be best, seeing as you can look for her from the skies, and there's no way I'm going to let her keep me here."

"I don't mind," Tails agreed. "Besides, someone needs to defend the castle."

"Fine then, it's settled," Knuckles said. "Sonic and I will go launch a counterattack on the Mushrooms while you stay and make sure nothing goes wrong."

Bowser came into the room at that moment and looked at Tails with a smile. "You okay, little guy?"

Tails shook his head and said, "Yeah, you must be the king, right?"

"Yep, but you can just call me Bowser. I don't really like any one calling me 'king'."

"We were just about to ask you about where Mario is," Sonic explained. "Got any ideas?"

"I've got my Paratroopas on patrol, and they've spotted Mario and Luigi coming towards our construction site," Bowser explained. "The best place to intercept them would be to the north, in the Koopahari Desert."

"Paratroopas?" Tails pondered. "What's a Paratroopa?"

"A Koopa with wings," Bowser explained. "Nothing makes better for a scout than being able to see your enemy from the safety of the skies!"

"I've got the experience to prove that one," Tails laughed. "Good luck, you two!"

"Right, we're gone!" Sonic said, and with that, well, he and Knuckles were gone.

**This concludes Chapter 3! Next: The fight you've all been waiting for: Mario and Luigi vs Sonic and Knuckles!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4! Batter up!**

Chapter 4: Round One

The two plumbers were traveling through the Koopahari Desert when they decided to stop for a break.

"Hot as ever, right Mario?" Luigi asked, remembering the first time they had crossed these shifting sands. "I remember the first time we met Morton Koopa Junior, just above that rock. I remember seeing that rock from the airship, not the most enjoyable memory… blowing up the airship while we were still on it..."

"Unfortunately, we never got to see if quicksand is really as quick as they say, did we?" Mario joked. "But yes, I do remember that battle, although I don't remember stopping to view the scenery."

"Yeah, well, you were the one that actually fought," Luigi added. "I'm happy with just being a bystander or a distraction."

Mario heard a rustling in the sands and turned around. "Did you hear that?" he asked his younger brother.

"Hear what?"

"Must just be a sandstorm. Let's get going before it picks up," he said, though he knew that it wasn't a sandstorm he'd heard.

"Is that them?" Knuckles asked Sonic after he saw Sonic run out to get a close look at the Mario Bros.

"I'm not sure," Sonic replied. "I'll get another quick look at them. Wait here."

"Sonic! Don't be so reckless!" Knuckles said, trying to be the voice of reason, although he knew it was hopeless trying to reason with Sonic.

"Yep!" Sonic said. "It's them, and they each have a Chaos Emerald!"

The sand picked up all of a sudden and shot into the plumbers' faces.

"That was not the wind, Mario," Luigi commented. "Someone's here!"

"You're right," Mario agreed. "Be careful, whoever it is doesn't seem to be willing to show themselves."

"It's too late for my definition of careful," Luigi complained. "That would have meant staying home and taking the defensive, letting them come to us."

"Not now, Luigi, it's time to test out these Emeralds."

"You don't think they know how to use Chaos Control, do they?" Knuckles asked.

"I doubt it," Sonic said. "You don't even know how to use Chaos Control."

In the distance, they heard Mario shout, _"Chaos Control!"_

"Then again, I could be wrong," Sonic said. "If they've slowed time, this could be a bit tricky."

Sonic started to charge a spin dash when Knuckles stopped him. "Wait Sonic, I've got a plan," he said. "You go on and lure them back to this spot, I'll have a surprise waiting for them."

"Gotcha!" Sonic acknowledged, and rushed off through the short set of dunes that separated the two groups of heroes.

Sonic caught up to the two plumbers and screeched to a halt. "The name is Sonic," he introduced himself, "and I don't like what you're doing to this dimension."

"We know who you are," Mario replied, "and I don't really agree with what you plan on doing either!"

"Enough said!" Sonic shouted as he started to charge a spin dash.

Mario lunged forward quickly with a fist, narrowly missing the blue blur. Again and again he tried, but even with time slowed, Sonic was faster then anything Mario had ever seen before. Sonic quickly came out of the spinning ball and rapidly kicked at Mario, left-right-left-right-left-right, never stopping to recuperate in between attacks. Mario suddenly grabbed one of Sonic's legs and threw him into a sand dune, although Sonic got right back up. Sonic dashed at Mario with everything he had; Mario didn't see any way out of this one. Then Mario saw his brother jump on top of Sonic from the rock they were talking about earlier. Mario and Luigi looked each other in the eyes and knew what the other was thinking. Mario charged up his fireballs, while Luigi hit them into Sonic with his Ultra Hammer. Sonic narrowly dodged eleven fireballs, running back a little with each blaze, the Mario Bros. chasing him with each retreating step. Sonic got into position.

"I can't take them both at the same time; a little help would be nice!" Sonic said, signaling Knuckles.

Knuckles punched at Luigi, who ending up lieing face up in the sand with a black eye. Luigi got up, clapped his hands together, and shot out a bolt of lightning at Knuckles. However, Knuckles quickly jumped over it and then gave Luigi a round of punches second in speed only to Sonic's kicks. Knuckles jumped up from under a sand dune, tackling Luigi in the process, leaving Mario for Sonic to handle. "I've got the green one," Knuckles said, forgetting the plumbers' names, "the red is all yours!"

Mario was having a rough time. Then Mario saw it, a broken shard from a propeller that had been on the airship so long ago. Mario quickly grabbed and jumped towards the hedgehog, who had now taken an offensive advance towards him. Mario got in close enough, and just as Sonic was about to kick him right in the face, he stabbed Sonic in the leg, making the teenage rodent fall into the grains of sand.

"_Yeouch!"_ Sonic yelled. "Knuckles, they got the better of us this time. As for you two, don't think we're just going to give up!"

Knuckles quickly picked up Sonic and ran off.

"Mamamia!" Luigi sighed in relief. "That was too close!"

"Do the bad guys ever stay gone?" Mario asked.

"What about the Smithy guy you told me about?" Luigi asked. "He only tried once, and that was a little over a decade ago!"

"Do not remind me of that," Mario complained. "Working with Bowser was not my favorite memory. You okay?"

"I've got a black eye," Luigi said, pointing to his right eye, "and my left arm feels like, well, actually, he did so many punches to it, I can't even feel the pain."

**Well, we have a draw! Next time: More searching and an old familiar villain!**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Searches #1

**Chapter 5! Enjoy! Plus, you get to meet two OCs of mine! And a little halftime show!**

Tails was searching through the Forest of Illusion for Amy at the time of the battle, also keeping a close eye out for the Chaos Emeralds as well as the Power Stars. He called out Amy's name constantly with no luck, and couldn't find anyone to ask for help either. His tails were getting tired, so he decided to land and look through the forest by foot for a while. When he landed, he noted some flowers that looked like a certain species that Bowser had described and warned him to stay away from, Munchers to be exact. He also saw some Monty Moles digging holes and searching for food. Never before had Tails actually noticed how many animals lived in forests. Most of the time, the forests he had been in were being burnt down by Robotnik. However, this forest wasn't as peaceful as it seemed to be at first glance.

"_Are_ you okay, Luigi?" Mario asked, concerned about his brother. "That's quite a bruise you've got there."

"This is why," Luigi complained, "I would rather be, and I quote myself, 'just a bystander or a distraction.'"

"There should be a village just a few miles ahead." Mario pointed past a few rocks, but mainly at just more sand. "They should be able to help us there. If we can make it there, we'll be able to rest and restock our supplies."

"The one right before Land's End?"

"Yes, Monstrotown?"

"Yes, but the ones who live there are hiding from Bowser because they don't like helping evil tyrants to take over the world."

"That's just what they want you to think!" Mario retorted, waving off the concern.

"By the way, Bro, sorry about taking so long to activate the Chaos Emerald, but when I saw how fast you and Sonic were both moving, I just got so scared, and was afraid that he might be the one that finally handed us a defeat."

"Think nothing of it!" Mario reassured his brother.

Back at Princess Peach's Castle, Yoshi was just getting back from his vacation. He decided to be polite and get the mail for Toadsworth, Peach's paranoid butler and attendant, since it had come a bit early. When he got inside the castle, he immediately saw Toads running back and forth all around the castle. He knew that could mean only one thing; Bowser had kidnapped Peach, again!

(Yoshis talk in grunts and squeaks, although Mario, Luigi, and many others have learned their language. A few Yoshis can speak English, including the one that commonly travels with Mario. However, their English is very basic, as their mouths are not shaped properly for speaking the way we do.)

"What happen here?" Yoshi inquired. "Where's Mario?"

"It's terrible!" Toadsworth shouted. "Bowser has done it again!" I can't believe it, especially since he wasn't even heard by a single guard! Usually we at least know what happened, we just can't stop him!"

"Bowser kidnap her and not get seen?" Yoshi asked.

"Yes! Bowser left this note for Master Mario," Toadsworth explained, "but the latest news says that he and Master Luigi are all the way in Monstro Town, and that they need to rest and restock there for a few days! If we don't get the message there by the time they leave, there's no way we'll be able to notify them of the princess' misfortune. The situation is absolutely horrifying!"

"Yoshi not best at rescues, but me good runner. Me give message to Mario and Luigi, and if they need Yoshi help, me stay there. Otherwise, Yoshi come back here, and tell you what they say to me."

"Very well then," Toadsworth said, trying to be calm. "A brilliant stroke of thought, Master Yoshi! Although, perhaps you should visit Professor Elvin Gadd, he seemed to be a bit concerned when he saw the letter."  
Yoshi made a grunt that meant he agreed, and headed down to the laboratory immediately thereafter.

Tails was just about to call it a day when he heard someone talking in the distance. He couldn't make out just what was being said, so he got a bit closer. Then, the talking stopped, and changed to maniacal laughter. Tails started running, and then went ahead and decided to spy on this unknown person from above.

It was a robot that had a slight resemblance to Robotnik, but not enough so to actually be one of Robotnik's creations. **(Can you guess who it is?)** Tails flew up to a branch above the strange machine. Another smaller robot that looked like it had the same face as the first one handed the large one something shiny.

_A Crystal Star!_ Tails thought to himself. _So that's what one looks like. I should stop them, but maybe I should listen in a bit before making my move._

"Well done!" shouted the larger robot, "That's a Crystal Star alright! Soon, the X-Nauts will rise again! GACK ACK ACK ACK!

(**If that didn't give it away, you haven't played Paper Mario 2. Well, time for my trademark offer- or at least it will be after I write a few more fan fics. If you can tell me who this character is, I'll give you all the lint in my pocket!)**

"Thank you, Master Grodus!" said the smaller robot.

"You've done well! But… I'm afraid your services are no longer required!" Grodus said sinisterly.

"W-What?!" the Elite X-Naut cowered.

With that, Grodus shot a laser out of his staff. Tails quickly jumped down and pushed the ex-Elite X-Naut out of the way, narrowly dodging the laser himself. "Get out of here, little guy!" Tails shouted. "I'll stop this robot."

The X-Naut was already gone, before Tails could tell him to leave.

"_Who dares challenge me?"_ Grodus shouted.

"The name is Miles Prower, but you can call me Tails," Tails said. "Or, if you don't like that, you could just refer to me as the one that will defeat you!"

"_FOOLISH WORM!"_ Grodus said. "You can never hope to comprehend the power you are up against!" Grodus held up his staff and shot a bolt of lightning from it at Tails, stunning the heroic fox where he stood.  
"Did you really think you could defeat me? You didn't even last five seconds! Even Lord Crump could have stood against me longer then that!"

Just then, an army of X-Nauts appeared, including the one that Tails had rescued, and a slightly larger one as well.

"We're sick of you trying to use us to take over the world!" said the leader of the group. "Go back to the moon, and give my little brother Crump my regards!"

"General Trump, so this whole thing was a set up… ha, ha, ha, _wahaha, HAHAHA!_ You think your little trap is really going to work? Just who is this little orange freak of nature, you traitorous worm? X-Nauts! Assemble!"

The army of X-Nauts that Mario would later fight on the moon appeared behind Grodus, tearing down a large patch of the forest in the process.

"I don't know who this new ally of ours is, but he protected one of our soldiers, and we will not allow you to harm someone for protecting another!" General Trump said.

"Please, do you take me for a fool? My army outnumbers yours a thousand to one!" Grodus pointed out. "Now that you've been flushed out of hiding, the task of destroying you will be simple very simple. X-Nauts, destroy this crosswired freak of a worm!"

"This is it, everyone. Here, we make our final stand!" shouted General Trump.

Grodus's army did, indeed, outnumber Trump's a thousand to one. In addition, Trump's army was fleeing, making it hard for Trump to attack. Then, when his whole army seemed to have run away, Trump went up to Grodus and laughed, then shouted, "Now!"

With that, the whole army was teleported on top of Grodus himself, who would have been destroyed if not for the Grodus Xs protecting him. Trump then proceeded to finish Grodus off, but Grodus took his staff and raised it high, and then a burst of flames came shooting out of it. Trump, however, was not the target, Tails was. Tails's paralysis had worn off, so he simply jumped out of the way, and then got behind Grodus. Grodus then hit Trump with his staff, piercing right through the metal armor that protected the noble robot. Tails then grabbed the staff from Grodus and tried pressing a few buttons. Nothing happened. Grodus, undaunted by Tails, attached Tails with his fists. He swung a quick left hook, knocking the staff to the floor, about ten yards away from the both of them. Tails charged up a quick spin dash (anyone from Mobius can do it) and ran towards the staff. However, he was caught by an Elite X-Naut and stopped short of his victory. Grodus simply walked towards his staff. Then, right as he was about to grab it, it disappeared.

"You still dare to defy me, Trump?" Grodus asked angrily. "Decloak yourself and return my staff to me now! I'm sure you wouldn't want anything to happen to your precious militia!"

"Did you forget that my army can use teleportation to escape from a battlefield?" Trump asked. "My troops can easily escape from you any time they feel that it is necessary. Besides, I know how to use your staff!"

Right from the spot that Trump's voice was coming from, there shot out a large lightning bolt that pierced the Grodus Xs and shattered his dome. Grodus, in a fit of rage, commanded his whole army to attack that area, which overwhelmed Trump, who was unable to hide even with his cloaking device.

Tails, however, was a bit luckier. When Grodus told his whole army to attack, everyone in it did so, including those that had been holding Tails. Tails ran up to Grodus, jumped on the Robotnik-like robot, and punched though the area of the dome that had been shattered by Trump's attack, severly damaging Grodus.

Grodus still grabbed his staff, but then decided to rethink his next course of action. "We'll settle this later, traitor!" Grodus shouted, pointing to General Trump. "TEC, teleport us up!"

Yoshi entered the profeesor's lab, and immediately a robotic Yoshi appeared. His eyes were unlike anything Yoshi had ever seen, each with a glare that showed more power then any form of electricity could ever give the beast. Both of them were unknown to Yoshi, but they were some sort of jewel. "Intiating monologue sequence," stated the robotic Yoshi. "My name is Roboshi. I shall terminate any who oppose my master, who wishes to remain anonymous at the time. You will fall in the name of my master."

"I may not know who your 'master' is, but I can assure you, if you won't be terminating anyone," Yoshi said in Yoshinese (my made up name for the Yoshi language), "and if you don't explain what's going on here, then I'm going to terminate you!"

"Challenge acknowledged," said Roboshi. "Target acquired, battle mode activated."

With that, jets appeared where one could see wings on a rare winged Yoshi, and Roboshi started to fly. When he opened his mouth, one could see a flamethrower as well. If that wasn't enough for Yoshi to deal with, he saw that Roboshi's tail was now spinning extremely fast, and would probably tear through him like a drill if he touched it.

Roboshi swooped down quickly, breathing a steady, heavy wave of flames at Yoshi all the while. Yoshi ducked, narrowly avoiding Roboshi's flare, only to have his tail scratched by Roboshi's. Roboshi turned his head around, then the rest of his body, and stuck out his tail like a bee would its stinger. He then dived at Yoshi, much too fast for Yoshi to dodge the attack. Yoshi saw his life flash before his eyes, when all of a sudden, FLUDD sprayed Roboshi with such force that the robotic Yoshi stopped right in his tracks.

"Thank you!" Yoshi said.

"I regret to inform you that I do not recognize Yoshinese in my system files," stated FLUDD. "However, I will help you in battle. Stay still for a second, I'll jump onto your back!"

With that FLUDD did as he had said and then strapped himself onto Yoshi. Yoshi quickly jumped back, and FLUDD automatically shot a burst of water at Roboshi. Roboshi retaliated by spinning his hands at the wrists and shooting bullets out of his fingers with the speed of a machine gun. Yoshi took two hits, one to his tail and another to his right hand. Yoshi knew that he had to think of a way to defeat this thing, and he had to do it quick if he wanted to live to tell about it. He decided to try for the eyes, as he could tell that the glow they held was strange and eerie.

"FLUDD hit his eyes," Yoshi said, now in broken English. "They weird."

"My water wouldn't harm something that hard," FLUDD explained. "You'll have to find something stronger."

Yoshi then saw a rock that had been torn away from the wall when the bullets that didn't hit Yoshi had hit the wall instead. He picked it up and tossed it into Roboshi's left eye (really the white Chaos Emerald.)

"Operation reduced to 50 percent efficiency," said Roboshi. "Determining best course of action; analysis complete. Initiating retreat mode."

And with that, Roboshi tore through the roof, and retreated through the rest of the castle unitl he was too high up to see.

"Is Professor okay?" Yoshi asked.

"Roboshi seemed to want some sort of information from him," FLUDD explained. "He tied him up over in his bedroom."

This is me,Yoshevil. Wow! You've actually stayed for half of the story! The next part that you'll read is a short intermission. It has nothing to do with the story itself, and is meant strictly to be funny. Feel free to skip it, but I highly recommend reading it for a quick laugh or two, or at least a groan!

An Intermission with some of those that were left out of the story

Starring:  
Shadow the Hedgehog  
Wario  
Waluigi  
Bowser Jr.  
Cream the Rabbit  
Cheese the Chao  
Giga Bowser  
Master Hand  
Crazy Hand

All the leftover characters are sitting down in a lobby, with the exception of Master Hand and Crazy Hand. Goombario is in the room as well. At the time everybody is just talking amongst themselves. The Intermission Complaints Club, or ICC, is gathered there to tell me how much they dislike my story.

Goombario: Why wasn't my name in the opening credits?

Giga Bowser: Why am I here? I'm in the story! I've been in the story since the first page of the prologue!

Goombario: So what? At least they mentioned you in the credits!

Giga Bowser: Why are you here, then?

Goombario: To complain about my name not being in the credits!

Cream: But Mister Goombario, if you had your name in the credits, then you wouldn't have had anything to complain about and then you wouldn't have come, and then they woulld just have taken your name out of the credits anyway.

Goombario: Well, why are you here then?

Cream: Because Cheese and I are tired of them telling him to act like the only thing he can say is "Chao!"

Goombario: So Chao aren't from the same game as that electric rodent?

Giga Bowser: I loved beating Pichu up in the Super Smash Bros. Tournament!

Cream: He speaks English suprisingly well.

Cheese: *clears throat* To be, or not to be? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to live or die in the minds of men!

Everybody claps.

Giga Bowser: But after that tournament, I'll never make fun of anhting pink, pudgy, or short... Not that I lost to Kirby or anything...

Shadow Mario: That's right, Papa! You smashed that little gumball into the next dimension!

Goombario: Is that what happened to my spot credits? Did Kirby eat it?

Shadow: *points to Shadow Mario, then to Wario* So if I'm a dark version of Sonic, then which one of you is a dark version of Mario?

Wario: I'm Wario, number one!

Waluigi: Yeah... right! The only thing you could do would be to sit on someone! ... Wait, never mind, that would be pretty frightening.

Wario: And what is that supposed to mean?

Master Hand and Crazy Hand enter.

Giga Bowser: It means that until just now, this whole room weighed less then you!

Master Hand and Crazy Hand: (_in sign language: _Actually, no, this room still doesn't have enough weight... because we're not touching the ground!)

Everybody but Wario laughs.

Waluigi: If you think he's bad now, you should see him after he eats a piece of cake!

Goombario: I'd like to see my name in the credits after he eats!

MH&CH: (Then he'd weigh more than Bowser did that time when he was a baby and Kamek turned him into a giant!)

Cheese: Thank you, fine sirs, or perhaps not so fine; you have done well in your efforts to alleviate me of my anger, so, if Cream doesn't mind being by herself for a while, I wish to excuse myself from this meeting.

Cream: No, I'm just here for you, so I'll just go with you.

Cheese nods in consent.

Giga Bowser: For someone that can only say "Chao", he speaks English very good.

Cheese: (while exiting the room) I speak English very well, not "very good".

Shadow: I've got to be on the other side of town in five minutes, so can we hurry up and get this over with in 299 seconds?

Giga Bowser: No more complaints from anyone? Okay then! I officially call this meeting to an end!

Ending Credits:  
Shadow as himself  
Cream as herself  
Cheese as himself  
Giga Bowser as himself  
Bowser Jr. as Shadow Mario  
Master Hand as the right hand of ?  
Crazy Hand as the left hand of ?

Goombario: Why isn't my name in the credits?! Hey, whoever you are, Yoshevil, you'd better put my name in the credits, or else I'll make sure Nintendo puts me in every Mario game made from now on!

Some idiot as Goombario

Goombario: That's not very nice!

Goombario cries as he runs offstage.


	6. Chapter 6

**I sincerely apologize for the lateness of this chapter…my internet acted screwy, then it was Thanksgiving, so anyways, here's chapter 6!**

Chapter 6: Found Something Useful

Tails was still in the forest where the battle between him and Grodus had taken place just moments ago.

"Thanks," Tails said to Trump. "You saved my life. Usually, whenever that happens, Sonic, Knuckles, and I all save each other at the same time!'

"Although I don't know who you are talking about, you did save mine as well," Trump reminded him. "And you also saved the life of one of my men. What is your name, little hero?"

"Miles Prower, but everyone calls me Tails," he explained. "But I have to ask you a favor."

"Well, I can't guarentee nor deny any request until I hear it," Trump said. "What do you need, Tails?"

"The Crystal Star," Tails started. "I have to protect it, that way we can defeat an evil tyrant of our own... Sonic, Knuckles, and I, I mean."

"I think that you've proven yourself trustworthy enough," agreed Trump. "Victor, would you please get the 'Grodus bait' please?"

"Sure thing!" said the X-Naut that had been handing the Crystal Star to Grodus earlier took it, then smashed it. He walked into the forest, and then came back a few seconds later with the real Crystal Star.

"Here ya go, kid!" said Victor. "And sorry about running off like that earlier, but I had to tell the rest of the militia."

"Thanks!" said Tails. "And don't worry about earlier, I'm still kind of confused about this Grodus guy anyway."

"If you have the time, we could explain," said Victor. "We should be safe for a while, I don't think anyone has ever been able to crack Grodus's dome before! You and the general make a great team! Hey, I've got an idea! Why don't you join up and help us?"

Tails frowned and then said, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you. I've got to help Sonic stop a mad scientist named Dr. Ivo Robotnik. And trust me, Robotnik is one tough egg to crack."

"We understand," said Trump. "You've helped us a lot already anyway. Thanks again, and good luck on your journey, young hero."

"Thanks everyone, and good luck to you guys as well!" Tails said as he left, waving to his newfound freinds.

Yoshi entered Gadd's bedroom and found the professor tied up and hanging from his feet, which were suspended on a coat rack.

"Are you okay?" FLUDD asked his inventor. "Yoshi defeated that evil robot, but I regret to inform you that it got away."

Yoshi carefully got Gadd down and then untied him.

"I'm fine, thanks to you two," Gadd said thankfully. "But I'm afraid I can't remember anything before I was tied up."

"What do you mean, Professor?" FLUDD asked. "I heard you the whole time, although I couldn't make out much of what you were saying."

"I remember Mario and Luigi leaving to find an evil hedgehog named Sonic, then I remember checking on you to see how far along the installation of the upgrades I had designed were, then I remember starting to work on the Poltergust 3002 for about an hour. If I remember correctly, it still has lots of bugs to work out."

"Then what happen?" Yoshi asked.

"I remember hearing Dr. Robotnik yelling for help, and then... the next thing I can remember is seeing that mechanical Yoshi trying to ask me about something called an IDMET, an InterDemensional Mass and Energy Transporter. I must say, as much as I like to call myself a genius, creating an interdemensional gateway just isn't my area of expertise!"

"The robot had two power sources, one in each eye," explained FLUDD. "Yoshi managed to remove one of them from the machine before it escaped."

"Oh! That's right, his eyes were Chaos Emeralds!" Gadd said. "They're very important and- perhaps I should just explain from the beginning."

With that, Gadd explained everything that he and Dr. Robotnik had told Mario and Luigi.

"What ever happened to Dr. Robotnik anyway?" Gadd asked himself after finishing his summary.

"Yoshi no know," Yoshi said, "but Toadsworth say that this letter make you worry."

Yoshi handed the letter to Gadd, who read it over.

"Well, I must say, I don't remember reading this at all," Gadd said. "However, you should take it to Mario and Luigi immediately."

Yoshi nodded and asked, "I go tell them now."

Yoshi started to take FLUDD off when Gadd said, "Take him with you, he's very helpful in almost any situation. Just make sure you take these as well."

Gadd handed Yoshi the hover, turbo, and rocket nozzels. He then gave them a fifth nozzel that looked like the rocket nozzel, but the place where the water was shot out was much smaller.

"Use this one only in case of emergencies," Gadd warned them. "It hasn't been field tested, and I'm afraid it may backfire. However, if it works, it will shoot out a stream of water more powerful then anything else I've seen!"

"Okay," Yoshi said. "Me just realize, Yoshi don't know way to Monstrotown."

"FLUDD has a built in map of all the known areas of the Mushroom Kingdom, as well as most of Delfino Island," Gadd said. "He'll be able to get you there in no time!"

Yoshi thanked the professor, and then left for Monstrotown.

Knuckles and Sonic had found Seaside Town at the edge of the Koopahari Desert. They, like the Mario Bros, had been tending to their wounds for the past few days. Sonic, ready for more, decided to hurry back to Bowser's castle and ask him if he knew what was going on. When he arrived, Tails was there to greet him.

"Sonic, we found one of the missing Power Stars!" Tails explained. "But I couldn't find any sign of Amy anywhere!"

"Good, now we just need two more!" Sonic said. "Nice job, Tails!"

"Wish that things went as well on our end," Knuckles said.

"What do you mean?" Tails asked. Then he saw the scar on Sonic's leg. "You weren't able to stop them?"

"We'll get them next time," Sonic said. "I've seen worse."

Bowser walked into the room, and grinned. "It's a good thing you're back!" Bowser said. "I'm afraid that I've got some bad news."

"We didn't exactly bring back a victory ourselves," explained Knuckles.

_The idiots! They were supposed to take care of Mario for me!_ thought Bowser. "Well, I'm sure you'll have better luck next time. However, someone named, er, what was it again, Omelett I think his name was? Anyway, he left this letter for you."

Sonic opened the letter and read it aloud.

_Hey! Sonic!_

_I see you've met my newest servant, Mario! Seems to me that you're having a bit of trouble keeping up with him! So much for you being the world's fastest hedgehog! You'll never win! If you really think you can, then come to Monstrotown and we'll see who is truly stronger, you or Mario!_

_Future King of Mobeus,_  
_Doctor Ivo Robotnik_

Below the signature was a map of all of the Mushroom Kingdom, including both the castles and Monstrotown.

"If it's a fight Robuttnik wants, it's a fight he'll get!" said Sonic.

"This isn't good," said Tails. "What if it's a trap?"

"What do you mean 'if'?" asked Knuckles. "It's always a trap!"

"You coming, Tails?" Sonic asked. "We'll need all the help we can get!"

"Have I ever missed out on an adventure?" Tails asked. "Of course I'm coming!"

With that, the three of them left.

Robotnik entered the room. "Mario seems to have given Sonic quite a nasty wound," Robotnik chuckled. "Now we just have to let them injure each other some more, and then, when they're both too weak to go on, we strike!"

"What are you doing here?" Bowser asked. "You're supposed to be making sure that Mario gets the letter that you wrote!"

"It's already taken care of," Robotnik reassured him. "And the fools think that you have me held captive!"

"It's too risky!" Bowser argued. "We should strike now while they least expect it! It would be simple: I ask Sonic to take my daughter Wendy out on a date, and then, when he has his back turned, she tears him to shreads with her claws!"

"And you wonder why you've never taken control of this universe?" Robotnik said mockingly. "Besides, I've already begun construction on the final marvel of the E-100 series, E-124 Alpha!"

"And that will help us how?" Bowser said. "That peice of junk is nothing compared to MechaBowser II!"

"Be careful what you say, Koopa," Robotnik said threateningly, "or you may become his first target!"

"You wouldn't be dumb if you'd stop insulting me!" Bowser tried to make a comeback. "Besides, I don't need a machine to destroy you!"

"Don't push your luck!" Robotnik said as he left. "It would be unwise to turn on me!"

Back in the Forest of Illusion, the two mysterious figures were discussing their plans.

"Perfect," said the first mysterious figure. "Has Roboshi fulfilled his purpose?"

"Indeed," said the other shadow. "And I've taken the remaining emerald from him."

"Excellent," said the first. "Now to give them away."

"Yes," agreed the second, "and no one shall stand in our way!"

Mario and Luigi, just like Sonic and Knuckles, were both well rested and ready to go. Right as they were about to leave for the Forest of Illusion, they were stopped by a familiar voice.

"Mario! I challenge you in a fight to reclaim my dojo!"

**Uh-oh! Who could that be?! And who are these mysterious figures lurking in the shadows?! Find out next time.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Here's chapter 7! Plus, you get to meet a semi-original character: Robo-Sonic! And you get to see my (bogus) take on Metal Sonic! And my skill at Japanese! **

Chapter 7: The Search #2

"Sensei!" Jinx said. "I wish to challenge you again for the right to command the dojo again!"

"Stop it with that I'm not worthy to look at you act!" said Mario. "And I told you, I'm not interested in owning a dojo, so you can just have it back."

"I won't let you leave without a fight!" Jinx restated.

"Don't worry, Mario, I'll do it," said Luigi. "How hard can it be to stop an ant?"

"I wouldn't judge anyone by size, Luigi, especially not Jinx!" Mario explained.

"I'll be fine!" Luigi said as he nodded to Jinx.

"Begin!" Jinx shouted.

Luigi immediately tried to kick the little ninja, with no success. Jinx was extremely fast, and surprisingly strong, very strong. Jinx quickly punched Luigi's stomach while shouting, "Quick Silver!" And wiith that, Luigi fell down.

Luigi immediately surrendered, and Jinx then helped him back up.

"Your efforts are noble," said Jinx, "but you lack the strength to defeat me."

"That's it!" Mario shouted. "Time to repay my debt from that time King Boo trapped me in that painting. Come on, Jinx!"

"Begin!" Jinx said as he got into position.

Mario jumped behind Jinx, and tried to punch. Then Jinx quickly kicked at Mario. Both of them failed to avoid the other's attack. Jinx tried to jump up and punch Mario in the face, but Mario quickly ducked, and then sprung up and punched Jinx's feet while he was still descending. Jinx hit the ground hard, but quickly got back up and shook it off.

"I can see you've improved your technique, Sensei!" Jinx complimented. "However, you will find that I, too, have improved since we last fought!"

Sonic and his friends were running through the Forest of Illusion when they saw something glaring likie the sun near the horizion, which caught their attention seeing as it was only three in the afternoon.

"What was that?" asked Knuckles. "You ever seen anything that bright?"

"Not often," said Sonic. "But yeah, why? You're not suggesting that we waste time to check it out, are you?"

"Yes, it could be important," said Knuckles. "We should check it out."

"Yeah, and so could checking out this Monstrotown place," Sonic said. "What if Robotnik put a bomb there as a trap for us? That means innocent people could get hurt."

"For some reason, I don't think that Robotnik is the one behind this," Knuckles reasoned. "I've just got this strange feeling that someone we don't even know has been manipulating us this whole time."

"You've said that every time we've gone on an adventure since Gramps turned into Metal Overlord, and you've been wrong every time!" complained Sonic.

"Let's just check it out, it's not like we can't take a small detour," Tails added.

"Fine! Forget that we've got something important to do! Let's just get this over with!" Sonic said in an annoyed manner.

"Last time I saw you, I hadn't mastered this move," Jinx explained to Mario. "But now, I've perfected it!"

Jinx quickly ran under Mario's legs, jumped up, and used his elbow to punch Mario in the back while yelling, "Quicksilver!"

Mario fell to his knees and was breathing heavily.

"V-very good Jinx," Mario congratulated his opponent. "But if I were you, I'd call this match off right now. So I'll ask you one last time; are you sure that you want to fight me?"

"Correct me if I am mistaken, Sensei, but I do not believe that I'm the one becoming acquainted with the dirt, now am I?" Jinx mocked.

"Allow me to change that," Mario said as he got back up.

Mario then jumped back a bit, pointed to Jinx with his right hand, and then made the "bring it on" hand signal with the same hand that he had used to point at Jinx with.

Jinx decided to keep on the offensive, and tried for a Silver Bullet like the one he had used to take down Luigi.

Mario knew that there was no turning back now, as he had no chance of blocking the Silver Bullet after taking something as strong as the Quicksilver. His only chance was to counter it, which he was in no position to do... but since when has that stopped him from being heroic before? He quickly, yet carefully, attempted to grab Jinx by the arm... he missed. Once again, Mario kissed the floor.

Sonic and his friends reached the place where they had seen the glare coming from.

"Keep your gaurd up, everyone," Knuckles said. "I've got a bad feeling about this!"

"It's not like anyone has ever been able to take on the three of us together," said Sonic as he shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Well I'll say, the source of that mysterious light doesn't seem to be here at all," said a woman with a southern accent.

"Who's there?" asked Tails.

"What? Oh, I'm quite sorry, I didn't notice you three there," she apologized, still out of sight. "But if I show you, you have to be promised not to be, er, startled by my appearance."

"Lady, when you've seen as much as we have, there's not much that can scare you at just a glance," said Knuckles. "And trust me, we've seen a lot."

"Well, okay, Bootler, let's show them," said Bow as she and her buttler revealed themselves.

Sonic and Tails were calm, but Knuckles was afraid of only one thing that anybody who knew him could figure out: ghosts!

"I think I'd like to take back what I just said," Knuckles said in an anxious manner. "Why did it have to be ghosts?"

"You'll have to forgive Knuckles, we all have our irrational fears," said Tails. "Mine is finding myself fighting Robotnik wiith all seven Super Emeralds, the Master Emerald, and a giant robot that killed Sonic and then I have to face. Completely irrational, right?"

"For my sake, I sure hope so," Sonic said. "But, I don't have any fears like that, so don't worry about me."

"Yes you do!" corrected Tails. "Your hydrophobia is far worse then Knuckles's polterphobia!"

"Hydro-whatica?" Sonic asked.

"It means you're afraid of water, which you can't deny," Knuckles said, trying to ignore Bow and Bootler.

"Did you boys hear something?" asked Bow. "I could've sworn I just heard someone in those bushes."

"I'll check it out... and I'm not afraid of water!" Sonic argued.

"You're right; you're not afraid of it, you're terrified!" Knuckles mocked.

When Sonic reached the bushes, he couldn't believe what he saw.

"No way!" he said. "It can't be!"

"What is it, Sonic?" asked Tails.

"Do you consent me as the victor?" Jinx asked as he paused.

Mario got up, and while doing so, he said, "Shin no tatakai wa... korekare da!"

Luigi just looked at the battle with a blank expression, and Jinx knew what Luigi was thinking: _What in the world did he just say?_

"Very well put, Sensei," Jinx said. "Although I do not believe your brother speaks Japanese."

"Do you remember the second Super Smash Bros. tournament?" Mario asked. Luigi nodded, and Mario continued. "Well, whenever Roy seemed to have lost to someone, he would say that. In my match against him, in Onett, I asked him what it meant. He said he would tell me if I could prove him wrong. After a long heated battle with him, and no clue what he meant, I defeated him, and he said, 'The true battle... begins here!'"

"I was in the audience at all of your matches, Sensei," Jinx said, "and I must agree, that if you can win now, then what you said has never been more appropriate!"

"As Roy also said in the match before I defeated him, 'Mamoru dekimono no tame ni... makerarenai!'"

Luigi wasn't sure if he should, but he asked anyway, "What was the story behind that one?"

"Well, it was the last preliminary match. That round we went by Stamina rules, and Roy was hanging from the edge of Peach's castle with his sword below him, and Bowser standing right above him. He couldn't go down to get his sword, as touching the ground would make him the loser. _You're weak! _Bowser snarled, getting ready to deliver the final blow. _You would probably be better off... original recipe!_

"With that, Bowser inhaled, preparing to use his flame breath to finish Roy off, and then Roy quickly jumped back on, and grabbed a fan. _Don't make me laugh!_ Bowser growled at the swordsman. _Don't tell me that you expect to stop me with that! This is too rich!_

"Bowser resumed his attack as Roy threw the fan at Bowser, and Bowser went flying in the air. On his descent, Roy grabbed Bowser, and said, _Perhaps you are stronger then me. However, there is a reason that you will not win! Mamoru dekimono no tame ni... makerarenai! _With that, he threw Bowser off the castle, and onto the ground."

"So what does it mean?" Luigi asked.

Mario smiled and said, "For those I protect... I cannot lose!"

"Then prove to me that you can protect us from this threat!" Jinx said. "If you wish to defeat this one that comes from another reality, you need all the training you can get! No one has ever been able to dodge this attack, not even you, Sensei!"

Jinx ran towards Mario while shouting, "Quicksilver!"

Mario ran towards Jinx, then allowed Jinx to begin his attack. Mario then, instead of trying to brace for or dodge the attack, allowed his muscles to go limp, and didn't even try to block the attack. Jinx hit, but Mario just stood there.

"It's not an attack," Mario said. "It's a counter, isn't it?"

Jinx just smiled.

"A counter that turns an opponent's block against them," Mario said. "So the trick isn't to block the attack, but to just allow it to hit. A counter can't work without something for it to counter." **[Do NOT try doing this in Super Mario RPG, if you do, Jinx will massacre you!]**

"Correct," said Jinx. "I surrender, Sensei."

"Stop calling me that!" said Mario. "I do have a name, you know!"

"Hey!" shouted Luigi. "That's my line!"

"Mario no go yet!" shouted Yoshi from a distance. "Yoshi have letter for Mario Brothers!"

Yoshi ran over to the three of them and handed the letter over to Mario.

"What's it say?" asked Luigi.

"Well, let's take a look," Mario said, as he proceeded to read the letter:

_To you so Called "Heroes",_

_I have finally formulated the ultimate plan to bring the world to its knees! I've also discovered that you've met my new ally, Sonic. However, the hedgehog should be the least of your worries as my progeny Ludwig is now working on something with a newfound mechanical mastermind who will help me create a machine to erradicate you once and for all!_

_Sincerely,_

_Bowser, King of the Koopas_

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" asked Mario.

"Yoshi's stone glowing and pulling!" Yoshi said as his Chaos Emerald came out and floated in between him and Jinx. "Yoshi no think it supposed to do that!"

At the same time, Jinx's belt came flying off and went towards the Chaos Emerald, revealing that his belt had two Chaos Emeralds on it.

"What just happened?" Luigi asked.

"Jinx! Do you know what those are?" asked Mario.

"No, Sensei," Jinx said. "Although I do owe you the belt since you did defeat me again."

"You can keep the belt, but we need those emeralds!" Mario explained. "They're very important!"

"Fine then. I'm not sure what they are, but if they matter that much, then I will entrust them into your care!" Jinx said.

"What is it, Sonic?" asked Tails.

All of a sudden, Robo-Sonic jumped out of the bushes and attacked Sonic. [Robo-Sonic has made an appearance in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and a cameo in Sonic Adventure, but he is NOT the same as Metal Sonic.]

"Who's this, a Metal Sonic wannabe?" Knuckles asked.

"Not even close," said Sonic. "This will be over with shortly!"

Robo-Sonic held out his arms like he was about to be arrested, and machine guns appeared on his wrists. He quickly fired at Sonic.

"Woah! I don't remember him being able to do that!" shouted Sonic. "Everyone, be on your gaurd! There's no telling what other surprises he might have up his sleeves!"

"That coming from you," Knuckles said. "You sure you're feeling alright?"

"Put a sock in it and help me out here!" Sonic shouted.

"Target acquired; primary target, Sonic the Hedgehog; locked on, firing missile launchers," said Robo-Sonic. "Tell me where Master Robotnik is, then die!"

Knuckles quickly punched Robo-Sonic from behind, but it didn't even phase him.

"New secondary target designated, identification unknown, threat level: zero," Robo-Sonic said, and then proceeded with his missile barrage on Sonic. The missile launcher replaced the machine gun on his right arm and seemed to be teleported into the forest at his will.

"Sonic, here!" Tails shouted as he picked up Sonic from the ground just before the missiles hit the spot he was standing on.

"Secondary target acquired, Miles Prower, threat level: zero," Robo-Sonic said.

"How come you're minimal, but we're only a threat level zero?" Knuckles asked. "Is there no end to the injustice?"

Then, Robo-Sonic's eyes started glowing, and lasers came out of his eyes. He stared directly at Tail's tails. The laser, however, didn't seem to do anything.

"Target lock acquired, firing missiles," said Robo-Sonic.

"Tails! Left!" Sonic quickly shouted.

Tails did as Sonic said, but the missiles homed in on Tails and knocked the two of them to the ground.

"It's a targetting laser!" said Knuckles as he tried to get in close. Once he was right in front of Robo-Sonic, he punched at the eyes, once again having no effect.

"You don't say!" Sonic said sarcastically. "And here I thought it was for directing air traffic."

"That's it!" said Tails. "I'll use the homing beacon on the Cyclone!"

"The Cyclone is still in our dimension!" Knuckles reminded him. "We'll have to do this the old fashioned way!"

"In case you haven't noticed, the 'old fashion way' isn't even scratching him!" Sonic argued.

"Where'd he go?" asked Tails, who noticed that Robo-Sonic seemed to be gone.

"Don't tell me he has a cloaking device too!" said Sonic.

"What, you afraid?" asked Knuckles.

"Porcupo! Above you!" shouted Bow.

"Who's Porcupo?" asked Sonic, as Robo-Sonic landed on top of him, knocking him to the ground.

"That's it, I'm helping them!" said Bow.

"Lady Bow, please reconsider!" said Bootler. "It's far too dangerous!"

"What's the worst that can happen? It's not like I can die," argued Bow.

"Very well, but please, do be careful!" said Bootler.

"Of what? That machine can't even hit me!" she said as she flew over to Sonic and then said, "Hold still for a second!"

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Not that I'm refusing your help, I'd just like to know what's going on here."

"I think she made you invisible," said Knuckles. "Either that or she made you into a ghost!"

"OKAY GUYS! I'M OVER HERE!" shouted Sonic.

"Targetting lasers shut down, initiating full arsenal spray," said Robo-Sonic. Out of his mouth came flamethrowers, and at the same time, he fired his machine gun and the missile launcher over at the area where he heard Sonic.

"We can't see you, Sonic," Knuckles said, "but we can all hear you perfectly fine, including him!"

"Well he's a pretty lousy shot when he can't see me," said Sonic. "He didn't even hit me once!"

"Correction, the attacks went right through you. I can do that to anyone as long as I don't let go of them," explained Bow. "Now, let's go inside of him!"

"Inside? You can let me do that?" Sonic asked.

"To be quite honest, there's only one way to find out," she admitted.

"Welll then, let's do it!" he agreed. Bow flew Sonic into Robo-Sonic, and solidified his hand. Sonic then removed the power source: two Power Stars!

"Sonic! You did it!" Tails said.

"Thanks to this Boo," Sonic said. "Bow, I think it is?"

"Yes, Lady Bow of the Boos, to be percise," she said.

"The name is Sonic, and thanks for helping us out," he said.

"Well Sonic, I must say, you are the tallest Porcupo I've ever seen!" she said. "Actually, you're probably thrice as tall as any other porcupo I've ever seen!"

"I'm a hedgehog... and why does everyone in this universe call me a Porcupo?" Sonic asked.

"Well, I'm not quite sure what the difference is, but you certainly do look like a Porcupo, wouldn't you say, Bootler?" Bow asked.

"Indeed, Lady Bow," Bootler agreed. "Now, have you had enough of your escapades for today? You made my heart race!"

"Fine, we'll just have to find the source of that mysterious light some other time," she agreed. "Have fun, you three. I wish you luck in the future, and I hope you don't run into too much trouble!"

"Somehow, I don't think that's an option for as, but good luck to you too!" said Sonic.

"Are they gone yet?" asked Knuckles, who was hiding behind a tree.

"Boo!" shouted Tails from behind Knuckles, making the Echidna run out from behind the tree screaming. Knuckles didn't realize what had happened until he heard Tails laughing.

"That's not funny! This is a serious matter, Tails!" Knuckles said.

"Seemed pretty funny to me," said Sonic. "Don't tell me you're afraid of an eight-year-old making random noises!"

"No! He didn't scare me, he just caught me offguard, that's all!" Knuckles said.

"Yeah... right," said Sonic.

"Grr... Let's just go to this Monstrotown place and get this fight over with!" Knuckles said.

"We'd better keep this Crystal Star with the others," Tails said.

"Others? I thought the rest were all at the castle," Sonic said.

"Well, Bowser said to take some equipment if we needed it, so I took a Crystal Star," Tails said. "We now have five of them with us."

"That's one tenth of them!" shouted Knuckles. "What if we were to lose them in battle, you know how large of an advantage that would give our opponents?"

"No time to think about that, it's almost sunset!" said Sonic, as he rushed off towards Monstrotown.

"Hey Sonic! Wait for us!" shouted Tails as he flew towards Sonic.

"Don't be so reckless!" Knuckles complained, as he ran off to catch up with the other two.

**Next Time: Round 2!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Here's chapter 8 for ya! Enjoy!**

Chapter 8: Rematch

It was sunset when Sonic and his friends arrived at Monstrotown. Mario and Sonic immediately caught sight of each other.

"Is that them?" asked Tails.

"Yeah, that's them all right," Sonic said. "If we start a full scale battle, then someone might get hurt. Maybe we can reason with them."

"Ha! That's a good one!" said Knuckles. "Even if we could reason with them, there's no way that _they_ could ever reason with _you_!"

"Very funny," Sonic said sarcastically. "In case you forgot, you're the one who wouldn't listen when we were trying to tell you about Robotnik trying to steal the Master Emerald from you. Hey, I think they've noticed us."

"I know that you always ignore me when I say this," Knuckles said, "but _please_ don't do anything rash!"

Mario saw Sonic conversing with Knuckles, and decided to interrupt them.

"You shouldn't have come looking for a fight," Mario said. "You can't stop us, we will win!"

"Look who's talking, plumber!" Sonic said. "I put forth a one-on-one challenge, just you and I! That is, of course, if you can keep up with me!"

"I'm not sure," said Luigi. "Do you think we can trust him?"

"I'll be fine," said Mario. "Even if he goes back on his word, you guys can always come and back me up."

"I sure hope you know what you're doing, Bro," Luigi said with a sigh.

"It's-a me, Mario!" he said as he stepped forward and shouted, "I accept! You'll pay for what you've done!" _"Chaos Control!"_ Mario shouted as he held the red Chaos Emerald.

Mario took the initiative this time, going into a tornado of punches. Sonic dashed under Mario and got behind the plumber. Sonic turned around and tried a sweeping kick to trip Mario, but Mario jumped back too quickly for the blue blur to succeed. Sonic then realized why he hadn't been able to win... the Chaos Emerald! He opted to focus all his energy on removing it from Mario's possession. He tried to dash past Mario and grab the emerald like so, but Mario quickly dodged and kicked Sonic. Sonic took no time to get back up, and charged up his spin dash, making sure that Mario was right in the way. Mario saw that Sonic was trying to build up speed, and tried to use a punch to stop him. Sonic sped right towards the plumber, so Mario started to try to counter it, but then decided to try a new approach. Mario stood still, contemplating the entire battle before making even the slightest action. Sonic came out of the ball and used his hands to propel himself into the air and aimed his feet right at Mario. Mario waited until Sonic's feet were close enough that he could smell the stench emitted from the sweat-filled shoes. (Come on; don't even try to tell me they wouldn't stink with all the running he does!) Mario grabbed Sonic by the feet, but Sonic didn't need to have his feet free for what he wanted to do. Mario spun Sonic around, while Sonic tried to fight the centrifugal force in order to take the Chaos Emerald from Mario. Sonic stretched his arm out... almost... got it! But at the same time, Mario let go, sending Sonic flying into the wall that surrounded the town, causing Sonic to drop the Chaos Emerald. It was right in the middle of them, just a simple twenty meters away; no contest in speed whatsoever. Sonic got up and grabbed the Emerald; however, the Emerald seemed to be burning, as though it were being melted in his hands as he held it. He had no choice but to let it go. Seizing the opportunity, Mario grabbed the Chaos Emerald off the ground, not thinking as to why Sonic would have dropped it. He didn't notice anything unusual, so he reactivated it by shouting, _"Chaos Control!"_

_What happened?_ Sonic asked himself. _The Chaos Emeralds have fallen into lava and then five seconds later they wouldn't even be warm, and now it feels hotter than noon in Sandopolis!_

Sonic jumped up and onto the walls, hanging onto the vertical surface momentarily, as he quickly jumped higher and higher. Mario wall kicked back and forth between two walls in a corner until he was up to Sonic's height, but he was too late.

"Let's see you stop the Sonic Tornado!" shouted Sonic as he spiraled towards Mario. Mario fell to the ground and fainted. Sonic tried to grab the Chaos Emerald again, but was disappointed to find that the same burning sensation was still there. Sonic ran towards his friends and frowned.

"Let's go, we'll come back for the Chaos Emeralds later," Sonic explained.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Knuckles asked.

"I wish we could do something else, but whenever I tried to pick them up, it felt like they were burning!" Sonic explained.

"That means the Master Emerald is near!" Knuckles said. "And who ever has it doesn't want the Chaos Emeralds in our possession!"

"We'll split up and look for the Master Emerald, right?" Tails asked.

"Yeah, if you don't have any luck, we meet back at the construction site in one hour!" Sonic said.

"Got it!" Knuckles and Tails shouted in unison as the three of them went towards the Forest of Illusion in separate directions.

"Are you okay?" asked a voice, fuzzy and distorted, "Mario? Can you hear me?"

Mario opened his eyes to see his brother, Jinx, and Yoshi all standing around him. Mario looked around him and realized he was in Jinx's dojo.

"What happened?" Mario asked as he got up.

"We lose," Yoshi answered.

"No, we didn't lose," Mario said. "I did."

"So what do we do now?" Luigi asked. "According to FLUDD, all the Crystal Stars are at Bowser's castle."

"Then what is there to ask?" Mario said. "We take the fight to Bowser like we always end up doing, and let deja vu take its course!"

"I have to stay here," said Jinx.

"I understand," Mario agreed. "The city needs someone to protect them from attack in case Bowser comes back here looking for us anyway."

"It will take a little while," Luigi said, "but I think that we should head out now, so that we reach the castle before sunrise, use the darkness to try a bit more of a stealthy approach then usual."

"Agreed," Mario said. "Let's go. Besides, Bowser has a rodent problem at his castle, and I intend to get rid of any rats he might have."

"Mario, you do realize that a hedgehog, although a rodent, is not a rat of any sort," FLUDD corrected.

"So do we know where Bowser's castle is?" Mario asked.

"Leave that to me," said FLUDD. "It resides in the Forest of Illusion, and I'm detecting multiple energy sources coming from the forest. One in the castle, the Crystal Stars; another is the Shine Sprites; and a third that I've yet to identify."

"Here we go!" shouted Mario as he, Luigi, Yoshi, and FLUDD departed for what they hoped would be the final battle.

**Next time: The true masterminds of this plan are unmasked!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Welcome to the next-to-last chapter of this story! Enjoy!**

Chapter 9: The Truth Will Set You Free

Tails was searching the forest from the skies, and couldn't find the Master Emerald anywhere. Then he saw something glowing brightly in the forest. He couldn't tell what it was, so he decided to take a closer look. What he found wasn't as pleasant as he had hoped.

"Eggman!" Tails shouted when he saw the evil madman. "You took the Master Emerald, didn't you?"

"Actually no, but would it really surprise you if I did? Either way, you have to deal with me now for trespassing on my territory! If you think you can stop me, I would gladly put an end to your misrable life!"

"I'm not afraid of you!"

"Oh really? Well then, maybe this will change your mind! Alpha!" Eggman grinned, and a gigantic robot similar to Omega E-123 tore down some of the trees, revealing a path made of his unecological designs. "Tell me, do you honestly expect to stop me all by yourself? An eight-year-old freak of nature against a genius of my caliber? Don't make me laugh! Omega, it seems this incompetent fox refuses to listen to reason, so why not run a weapons check on him? Destroy the pest!"

The giant robot was equipped with laser eyes, machine guns for fingers, rockets for legs, flamethrowers on each of its wrists, and a single use missile launcher on each shoulder.

Tails flew away, and Alpha started to pursue.

"Hold on, Alpha, we know where he's going," Robotnik laughed. "And we'll get him soon enough, but for now we must prepare for our final attack. Shut down weapons and engage in stealth mode! Set a course for the Kastle of Koopa!"

Robotnik opened up a hatch, climbed into Alpha, and then Alpha turned invisible. Although nothing else could be seen, the trees continued to fall as Alpha marched his way towards the castle, invisible nonetheless.

Luigi and Yoshi had reached the Kastle of Koopa, which was surrounded by a moat of lava. Mario wasn't with them, and neither of them was wearing FLUDD.

"Look!" Yoshi shouted as he pointed to the top of the castle. "Bowser!"

"Welcome to your worst nightmare!" Bowser shouted. "How foolish of you to show up! Unfortunately, I won't be able to witness your defeat, since I'm a little busy up here..."

"How many times has he said that before?" Luigi interrupted.

"Never interrupt my monologues!" Bowser yelled as he tried to shoot out his fire breath, narrowly missing Luigi, "Where was I? Ah, that's right! But perhaps you could do me a favor and play with Junior? He's really bored and needs something to help him pass the time!"

"And here I was afraid that we would have to fight someone that actually scared me!" Luigi said with a sigh.

"Junior, would you like to show Mario and his fre- Hey, wait a minute! Where's Mario?" Bowser asked. "But if he's not here, then why are you?"

_We're stopping you while Mario takes care of your rodent problem!_ Yoshi said. _We can still win!_

"Whatever, I'll just take care of Mario afterwards, then," Bowser said. "Junior, would you like to show these two your new toy?"

"You bet, Papa!" Junior said, although neither of the heroes could see him. Bowser turned around and went out of sight. Suddenly, a robot that looked just like Bowser jumped up from behind the castle walls and landed right in front of the two heroes of green. The machine roared, releasing flames into the sky all the while.

Back in the Forest of Illusion, Sonic was still searching for the Master Emerald. He heard the sound of a waterfall, saw many trees, and found a few Piranha Plants, but no Emerald.

"Where could that Emerald be?" Sonic asked himself. "It has to be around here somewhere!"

The sound of the waterfall stopped suddenly, so Sonic turned around to see why it had become quiet. Sonic saw Mario with FLUDD strapped to his back, and a Chaos Emerald in hand.

"Maybe you should worry about that later," Mario said. "That's the thing about us plumbers: if we don't get rid of the problem, then you only have to pay more."

"Wow, I've never thought I'd hear a monologue that corny!" Sonic said.

"It's not a monologue, it's a threat," said Mario. "And not even you can out run this! Chaos Control!"

Mario was using the Turbo Nozzle at the time, and Sonic was unarmed, with the exception of the six Crystal Stars, which he had decided to take from Tails before they split up.

"Time to see what these can do!" Sonic said as he held up the Crystal Stars. "Chaos- Wait a minute, how am I supposed to use these things?"

Mario, ignoring Sonic, used FLUDD to travel fast enough to keep up with, and even surpass, Sonic's lightning fast speed. Sonic put the Stars away and started to run through the forest, hoping that Mario would run into some trees. Although it helped him to keep Mario off his tail, Mario was still gaining on him nonetheless. Sonic ran up a tree and used the forest canopy as his battlefield, knowing that Mario wouldn't be able to run while up there. Unfortunately for Sonic, it meant that he couldn't use his speed to run either. Mario switched to the Rocket Nozzle and quickly pursued the blue blur. After he was at the top, he switched to the Hover Nozzle.

_That's impossible!_ Sonic thought to himself. _No one can keep up with me! Not even with the help of a machine! Eggman's never been able to invent anything that fast, and to make matters worse, I have to deal with Chaos Control, which he learned from Eggman, no doubt!_

Sonic quickly jumped from tree to tree, trying to find a weakness in Mario's battle plan. Without knowing it, Sonic had landed in a very special tree, one that only produced a single leaf every few days. It was a Tanooki tree, and Sonic had now found one of Mario's old power-ups. Sonic's tail grew longer, and his ears shrunk a slight bit. Also, his tail was now brown- and black-striped.

"What just happened?" Sonic asked. "This is not natural!"

Mario, noticing what had happened to Sonic, hovered over Sonic and then ground pounded on top of him. Sonic tried to jump away, but he missed the tree tops. Instead, he fell down. But, oddly enough to him, he wasn't falling as fast as he expected to. Instead, he was slowly floating to the ground. He realized that he had been shaking his tail, and used it to guide him to a low tree. He then triangle jumped until he was back up to the tree tops, and right in front of Mario. Sonic quickly kicked Mario, and hit the plumber with his tail. Mario used FLUDD to prevent himself from falling. Mario could see the Kastle of Koopa from the tree tops and noticed Mecha-Bowser, but he couldn't let that distract himself from the battle. He quickly switched to the standard Squirt Nozzle and sprayed at Sonic, but Sonic easily jumped out of the way, since the stream of water was unaffected by Chaos Control after it left FLUDD's tank.

"Mario, perhaps we should retreat," FLUDD suggested. "My tank is near depletion."

"We can't afford to retreat," Mario said, "but I've got an idea."

Tails was running through the forest, thinking that he was still being persued by Alpha. He ran into Knuckles by accident, knocking them both to the ground.

"Hey! What was that all about?" Knuckles asked. "You could have given me some warning there!"

"Sorry, a huge robot was chasing me," Tails said.

"So Robotnik's here, figures!" Knuckles said. "So what exactly are we up against?"

"I couldn't tell much, I only looked back once while I was flying, and it seemed to be based off the designs for Omega, maybe he's the last of the E-100 series," Tails suggested. "Or maybe the first of the E-200? Either way, this thing is huge! It pushed aside trees like one of us would push away a small bush."

"Wait, was it tall enough that you could see it from above the trees?" Knuckles asked in a concerned manner. "Tails, could you see it while you were flying?"

"Yeah, it was pretty big," Tails answered, unaware of why Knuckles would ask that question. "Nothing like the Egg Carrier, and definitely nowhere as huge as the Death Egg, but it was tall enough to see it from the trees."

"We have to find Sonic and fast!" Knuckles said. "There's no telling what Bowser's really up to!"

"What are you talking about?" Tails asked.

"Before you woke up when we first got here, Bowser said that he has guards that can see anything that happens in this forest, and if his troops didn't attack Robotnik, then that can only mean one thing!"

"You mean that those two are working together?" Tails asked. "That explains why Mario actually kept his word in his fight against Sonic!"

"Exactly, we've got to figure out a way to break up the fight before Robotnik and Bowser can combine their troops!" Knuckles said. "Fighting one army is always a warm-up, but fighting two would mean we would actually have a good chance of losing! And with us out of the way, how long do you think it will take for Robotnik to go back to Mobius, put the whole planet under siege, and then fulfill his twisted dreams of world conquest?"

"I don't even want to think about that!" Tails said. "I'll go ahead and fly towards the castle; will you be okay here?"

"An eight-year-old is offering to be my bodyguard; yeah, I really feel good right about now," Knuckles said. "I'll be fine, just make sure that Sonic doesn't fight Mario! They'll both need their full strength if they want to stop two evil overlords. And stay below the trees, that way no one sees you coming!"

"Got it!" Tails said as he flew towards the castle, taking Knuckles's advice.

"Now, where is the Master Emerald? It has to be here somewhere," Knuckles said as he continued to search.

Mecha-Bowser's cheeks puffed up, as though its mouth was full of water, and then spit out two Bob-ombs.  
Luigi lay on his back and curled up his legs while signaling Yoshi to jump onto them. When Yoshi did so, Luigi used his legs to propell Yoshi into the air. Yoshi slurped up one of the Bob-ombs and spit it back at Mecha-Bowser. Yoshi turned around in an attempt to do the same to the other Bob-omb. Junior saw this, and immediately launched a Bullet Bill at Yoshi. Yoshi was knocked to the ground, but was able to recover nonetheless.

The other Bob-omb was heading for Luigi, who decided to catch it. "Short fuse!" he yelled, and then threw it back at Mecha-Bowser, but it exploded in midair, doing no harm to anyone (except the Bob-omb, of course!).

Yoshi saw a large chunk of rock and swallowed it, making it into an egg. Yoshi immediately threw it at Mecha-Bowser's eyes, blinding Junior to the battle. In an attempt to fix it, Junior tried jamming every button and toggling every switch that he saw. In doing so, Mecha-Bowser fell into the lava moat that surrounded the castle.

"Whaaah!" Junior cried as he escaped from the machine and into the lava. "I don't wanna take a bath!"

"You won't get away with this!" Sonic said as he swung his tail, knocking Mario to the ground.

Mario got back up, but he had dropped and lost track of the Chaos Emerald in his fall. Mario used FLUDD's Rocket Nozzle to deliver a devastating punch to Sonic, forcing him to relinquish his Raccoon power. Sonic was knocked down, and Mario used the time to retreat.

"I am glad to see you reconsidered," FLUDD said. "Our chances of victory are slim without the Chaos Emerald."

"I've got four more on me, we'll be fine," Mario whispered. "And we're not really retreating, we're trying to find those Shine Sprites, and some water. I've been here before, and there should be a lake that leads to an underwater maze. I should be able to lose him in there, as long as he doesn't swim as fast as he runs!"

"A questionable method, relying on luck," FLUDD pointed out. "However, I don't see any better options, so very well."

"Let's go, Chaos Control!" Mario shouted, now utilizinging the blue Chaos Emerald. (The only Emerald Robotnik had was the white Emerald, not that it mattered which one it was.)

Mario ran towards the lake, hoping that the Chaos Emerald would slow down time enough for him to get to the lake before Sonic, which it did, barely. Mario dove into the lake known in Super Mario World as Forest of Illusion 2, let FLUDD recharge, and used the Turbo Nozzle to navigate the underwater tunnels.

"It had to be water!" Sonic sighed. "I'll have to finish this later... No way that I'm going to follow him under there!"

Sonic ran off towards the castle, hoping to be able to find his friends there.

Mario, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all reached the castle at the same time. Mario and Sonic headed straight for each other, until Knuckles dived into Sonic, knocking him to the ground. Tails did the same to Mario.

"What are you doing, Knuckles? Has Robotnik tricked you again?" Sonic asked in a frenzy.

"Get off of me, you evil fox!" Mario shouted. "No one touches the hat!"

"Hold on!" Knuckles said. "I need to tell you something!"

The castle walls fell, revealing a giant metal egg. Everyone stared, wondering what the machine was.

"Gwarharhar!" Bowser laughed as the egg unfolded into something different. "You idiots have played right into our hands!"

"It was all too easy!" Robotnik quoted Vader with a sinister smile.

"Still watching too many Star Wars movies, I see!" Sonic laughed. "What is it this time, another Death Egg?"

"Actually no, I decided to go with a new approach this time, basing this work of art on Bowser!" Robotnik continued to laugh.

When the robot was complete, it looked just like Giga-Bowser, except for the fact that it had Eggman's signature mustache on its face.

"What did you do to my beautiful face?" Bowser asked with a growl.

"Please, there's still plenty of room for improvement," Eggman argued. "Besides, now it has better balance and won't just tumble over like your Mecha-Bowser did!"

The six heroes all looked into each other's eyes and realized what had happened.

"You ready to do this?" Sonic asked.

"I'll go for the head," Mario said. "Can you take out his feet?"

"Um, maybe you guys should see this," Tails said as he pointed towards Egga-Bowser.

Eggman and Bowser continued to fight, and the machine seemed to be going haywire in the process, until it finally exploded.

The single remaining Chaos Emerald and Crystal Star was revealed as the power source for the robot.

"What just happened?" Tails asked.

"I'm not sure," said Sonic, "but I don't think that the Chaos Emeralds and the Crystal Stars can be together. You know, like that matter and anti-matter thing Tails and Robotnik were arguing about that one time."

"I said that they would destroy each other, not everything around them," Tails said. "Just take the Chaos Emeralds and give him the Crystal Stars before Robotnik and Bowser get out of there!"

Mario and Sonic did as he said and shook hands. But as they did, the true masterminds behind this vile plan revealed themselves.

"Your end is near, Mario, and I must say, it's a pleasure to finally be back here in the Mushroom Kingdom after a decade!" Smithy said. "Because nothing would make me happier than to see your grave!"

"As for you, Sonic, you will share Mario's fate," said Metal Sonic, "and I can guarantee that it will be a bleak one!"

***gasp* So, the masterminds were Smithy and Metal Sonic! Next time: The Final Battle!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Here we are! The grand finale! The Ultimate Show! As such, you shall listen to music on Youtube!**

Chapter 10: The Final Battle

**watch?v=L6n0Rt77bRU**

The night sky grew dark with clouds, and an eerie wind blew. Thunder and lightning began to roll and fate itself hung in the balance.

A bolt of lightning struck one of Tails's tails.

Mario held the Crystal Stars, and Sonic held the Chaos Emeralds. Bowser and Robotnik tried to sneak away, however, Knuckles, Luigi, Tails, and Yoshi surrounded them.

"Come on!" Bowser said. "I'm done causing trouble for the Mushroom Kingdom this week!"

"No way that we're letting you two try to conquer multiple universes, and then get away!" Luigi said.

"It looks like you have your hands full," Robotnik tried to divert their attention. "I doubt that Mario and Sonic will be able to stop Metal Sonic after weakening each other, much less Metal Sonic and one that he considers an equal!"

"Not this time, Robotnik!" Tails said.

"Need some help?" Mario asked.

"We're fine!" Knuckles said.

Just concentrate on stopping those two! Yoshi grunted. "We be fine!"

"We need to stop Smithy here," Mario explained. "He's even more dangerous than Bowser!"

"Oh, just perfect!" Sonic said. "Well, it's only fair to warn you that Gramps is no easy beast to cage either!"

"Gramps?" Mario said with a confused face. "You mean that's your grandfather? But he's a..."

"Robot, I know," Sonic started. "My uncle created a machine that could replace injured limbs with robotic ones, if the wounds couldn't be healed. Before I was born, Robotnik stole it, and transformed countless helpless animals into evil robots of war. My grandfather tried to stop him for many years. I was named after him, and I can contribute all my knowledge of being a hero to him.

"However, one day, when he was with me..." Sonic started to cry. "It was my fault... Robotnik was attacking my grandfather, who was worried about protecting me... While Gramps was trying to shield me, Robotnik stunned him with a laser, captured him, and used the roboticizer at full power. Eventually, Gramps betrayed Robotnik, but the darkness that Robotnik put into him is still there.

"Ever since that day, I've been trying to find a way to reverse it, but even with Tails's help, I still don't have any leads as to how to go about reversing the effects of the roboticizer," Sonic explained. "But just because he's my grandfather, doesn't mean I'll let him get away with this!"

With the Power of the Stars, Mario transformed into Metal Mario! Sonic took the Chaos Emeralds and transformed into a more heroic form as well: Super Sonic!

"Let's fly through with sonic speed!" yelled the gold glowing hedgehog.

"Here we go!" acknowledged the liquid metal plumber.

Smithy was using his first form; however, he and Metal Sonic were ready nonetheless. Metal Sonic wasted no time rushing in with his steel chainsaw spin attack, charging right at Sonic. Sonic moved so fast, he seemed to teleport behind Metal Sonic. Sonic tried a Light Attack on Metal Sonic, but missed completely.

"No way!" Sonic exclaimed. "No one's ever been able to dodge the Light Attack! Not even you can move fast enough!"

"Feeling a bit tired from your battles?" Metal Sonic taunted. "I've come to take what should have been mine long ago!"

Smithy, also seizing the first attack, pounded his hammer and shouted, "Sword Rain!" With that, Smithy rapidly forged metal blades and threw them in every direction. Mario had a hard time dodging them all, and being in metal form didn't help when it came to dodging them with his agility.

"Face it, Robotnik!" Knuckles said. "It's the end of the line!"

"Not likely!" the mad scientist replied. "Behold, the final creation of my E-100 series, E-124 Alpha!"

"Koopalings!" Bowser shouted.

Six of Bowser's children lined up behind him. Ludwig and Junior weren't with them.

"Junior, would you like to play too?" Bowser asked in a playful voice.

"Sure thing, Papa!" Junior said as he climbed out of the lava. "I didn't want to go swimming anyway."

Alpha then appeared as he tore down two of the castle's four remaining towers.

"You can fly and carry people, right?" Luigi asked while looking at Tails.

"Normally yes, but I just got struck by lightning," he reminded Luigi. "Sorry."

"Yoshi, you got a blue shell with you?" Luigi asked.

Yoshi shook his head.

"Can you throw me up on top of that robot?" Luigi asked Knuckles.

"Throwing isn't exactly my specialty," Knuckles said. "Why do you need to get on top of him?"

"I can make the missiles explode. Just trust me, I don't have any time to explain," Luigi said.

"Let's just stop the bad guys," Tails said. "Let's not worry about doing anything fancy."

"Yoshi have idea," Yoshi said as he pointed to the Koopalings.

"Tails, I'm sorry, but you should sit this one out," Knuckles said. "You're only endangering yourself by fighting in your current condition."

"He may be right," Luigi agreed. "You could make the injury permanent!"

"Yoshi say me got plan," Yoshi restated.

"But I can't just let you fight them alone, then you'll be outnumbered three to one!" Tails argued.

"Better then you getting killed!" Knuckles shouted.

"I'll be fine!" Tails yelled back.

"ME GOT REALLY GOOD IDEA!" Yoshi shouted at the top of his lungs.

"No need to shout," Knuckles told him.

"Yeah, we're all right here," Luigi concurred.

"Just make Junior hide in shell," Yoshi said while pointing to Junior.

"No problem!" said Knuckles as he rushed towards the youngest of Bowser's children.

Roy jumped in front of Knuckles and said, "You're mine! No one gets to call themselves a punching machine without a challenge from me!"

"I never called myself that," Knuckles said.

"Oh really? Then explain your definition of the word 'knuckle' to me," Roy said.

"Lunch," Knuckles chuckled.

"Lunch? What'cha talkin' about, shrimp?" Roy asked in confusion.

"Allow me to show you!" Knuckles shouted as he delivered an uppercut to Roy's lower jaw.

"Ooof!" Roy grunted as he fell to the ground, and muttered one last sentence before he fainted. "Knuckle sandwiches are more fun to make then they are to eat."

Wendy charged towards Knuckles while spinning in her shell while his back was turned. Luigi saw that Knuckles was in trouble and quickly jumped on Wendy's shell. Wendy was pinned to the ground, and she screamed, "THAT'S NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY!"

Then, she pushed Luigi off and swiped her claw at him, giving him some minor cuts on his upper left arm. Luigi sharged up his Thunderhand and punched Wendy in her left arm, knocking her out cold from the shock. As she fell, Luigi taunted, "Well, that wasn't very lady-like."

"Why isn't Alpha firing?" Tails asked his friends.

"Hey, that's a good question," Luigi agreed. "It's not like Bowser would care about his children... Sometimes I feel sorry for them, having such a bad father."

Morton ran over to Luigi and said, "How dare you say that about Daddy King! He's the greatest, most wonderful, most amazing, best, most incred-"

"Shut up!" shouted all of his brothers that were conscious.

"But then I see Morton, and realize that Bowser is the one suffering!" Luigi taunted.

"What did you say, exclaim, announce, convey, utter, express verbal-"

"Shut up!" yelled everyone that was fighting.

Junior stepped forward with his magic paintbrush and shot some goop into his brother's mouth. "You want a slightly used idiot?" Junior asked everyone while holding up his older brother. "I'll give you a thousand coins to take him!"

Lemmy and Iggy attacked the seemingly helpless Tails, who was running away from the so-called "twins".

Mario saw the helpless fox and shouted, "Miles! Catch!" He immediately threw FLUDD to Tails. Noticing Mario was distracted, Smithy attacked swiftly with Sledge, one of his most powerful attacks in his "normal" form. Mario didn't even know what hit him, and it could have very well killed him if he wasn't in metal form at the time. Though it injured him greatly, Mario shook it off and went straight at Smithy, attempting to punch the heartless machine (no, I'm not talking about the Tin Man). He connected, but Smithy was barely stunned by the attack, only flinching from it. Smithy hammered at Mario repeatedly, knocking Mario to the ground and driving him into the dirt. However, Mario had a plan...

Sonic was having just as much trouble with his grandfather. Metal Sonic quickly grabbed Sonic, putting him in a painful grip.

"Impossible!" Sonic said. "How can you harm me while I'm in Super form?"

"You fool... Do you really think all that matters are the Chaos Emeralds and the Crystal Stars?" Metal Sonic asked. "The Master Emerald is all I need for now, and the Master Emerald I possess!"

"But you never even touched it!" Sonic said. "It's too big for you to hide!"

"Maybe you should see this, then!" Metal Sonic said as he threw aside his cape, revealing that he had welded broken shards of the Master Emerald into his metallic shell. "The Master Emerald shattered when it made the jump through dimensions, and I collected the shards! With it, not even you can stop me!"

"There's no way I'm leaving the Master Emerald in your hands!"

"You don't have a choice... CHAOS CONTROL!"

Sonic couldn't even see his grandfather, he was moving way too fast to be caught by light, and was therefore invisible. Sonic was taking hits from every direction , not getting a moment to recover from the attacks of his unseen predator. For once, Sonic thought that he actually might lose...

Tails jumped up and grabbed the waterpack known as the Flash Liquidizing Ultra Dousing Device and it strapped onto him while he was still running from Lemmy and Iggy.

"Now what?" Tails asked himself.

"I'll take care of those two!" said FLUDD as he squirted water in front of the two Koopalings. The two of them ran into each other.

"You can talk?" Tails asked.

"Affirmative," FLUDD said, "as well as analyze situations, squirt water, allow you to temporarily hover in the air, allow you to keep up with your blue-furred friend, allow you to rocket up into the sky, and theoretically, shoot a laser made of water."

"Thanks," Tails said. "You saved my life back there!"

"I haven't saved you yet," FLUDD corrected. "Until the battle is over, the danger is still there. If I am not mistaken, you still have two Koopas and a giant robot to fight."

"You're right!" Tails said as he ran back to help the rest of the sidekicks.

Yoshi saw that Bowser was staying near Junior at all times, making it difficult for Yoshi to execute his plan. Luigi went after Bowser himself, jumping into the air, landing behind Bowser, and trying to grab the tyrant turtle by the tail as his brother had done so many times before. Bowser didn't allow it to be done so easily, as he quickly turned around and swiped his right claw at Luigi. Luigi ducked down to avoid the attack, and tried a sweeping kick to knock Bowser down. Bowser jumped back and both remained untouched by one another.

Junior took his paintbrush and shot a ball of goop into Luigi's eyes, blinding the plumber for the time being. Luigi blindly batted his fists around until he grabbed one of Junior's horns. Luigi then felt for the bib, tore it off, used it to wipe his eyes, and handed it back to Junior, who was furious at Luigi for ripping his bib. Junior inhaled, then tried to breath fire, but all that came out was smoke.

Luigi then charged up some electricity and punched at Junior while he yelled, "Thunderhand!" One of Junior's teeth were chipped, and he ran away crying.

Knuckles tried to climb on top of Alpha, trying to figure out why the robot wasn't firing. He did so by climbing one of the two remaining towers and gliding over to Alpha. He easily did so, and saw a hatch that resembled that of a submarine hatch. He put both hands firmly on the valve and tried to turn it. Immediately, a huge bolt of electricity flowed through the hatch, and Knuckles was knocked to the ground, paralyzed for the time being.

Yoshi saw Junior and attempted to ground pound him. However, Alpha fired his machine guns at Yoshi, hitting the dinosaur several times in the legs. Junior simply continued to run away from the battle, but Bowser stared at Yoshi and smile. Bowser inhaled, and opened his mouth...

Tails saw Yoshi in trouble, ran over to Bowser, and FLUDD sprayed water into Bowser's mouth, right as the flames were coming out. Though Yoshi could still feel the heat, the flames never actually touched him, thanks to FLUDD and Tails.

Bowser stepped towards the fox, and laughed maniacally. Then he growled and said, "You think your water gun can stop me? Oh, this is too rich! Ha! Oh, I'm so sacred, it- it- it's- WATER! Do I look like I'm made of sugar or something?" Bowser regained his composure and then swiped his claws at Tails, one after the other, each time forcing Tails to take a step backwards to avoid the blows. Eventually, Tails tripped over a rock, and fell on top of FLUDD, damaging the water master.

Bowser grabbed Tails, laughed, and said, "All this fighting has made me really hungry, and you look good enough to eat!"

Bowser was about to swallow Tails whole when he felt a tug on his tail. He turned his head, but it was too late. Bowser dropped Tails, and was being spun around in circles. Luigi spun faster and faster, knowing that his target was going to be heavily armored. He kept on building up speed, until finally, he threw Bowser into Alpha, knocking the robot into the moat of lava. The hatch opened, and out climbed Robotnik and Ludwig. They ran away, as did the rest of the villains.

"We have to go after them!" Tails said.

Knuckles put his arm on his friend's shoulder, and struggled to say, "No, look, Mario and Sonic are in trouble. We have to help them."

Knuckles was still paralyzed for the most part, and Yoshi clearly couldn't walk, so Luigi stepped into the conversation and said, "You two wait here, you're in no condition to fight. We'll help Mario and Sonic."

Mario was knee deep in the mud, and now in position to execute his plan. He quickly performed a Mario Tornado, flinging the dirt into Smithy's eyes, giving Mario a chance to attack. Mario delivered a swift blow to Smithy's head before the monstrous machine could get the dirt out of his eyes. Smithy then pounded his hammer on the ground, and a shockwave of energy knocked Mario to the ground. Worst of all, the Crystal Stars scattered, making Mario lose his metal form.

Sonic was still being hammered from every direction by Metal Sonic, and with the already near invisible speed of Metal Sonic being amplified by the Master Emerald, Sonic was running out of options. Sonic couldn't hold out any longer... he was knocked to the ground, hitting a rock. The Chaos Emeralds were scattered about, which returned Sonic to his usual self.

"You are weak!" shouted Metal Sonic. "And the weak have no place in this, or any other world! CHAOS BLAST!"

Smithy stepped forward and raised his hammer for a final blow.

Before he swung, he had one thing left he wanted to say to Mario. "You see what has happened? Hope has failed, you have failed, light has failed! And now, evil shall rule!"

Smithy swung down at Mario, but the hammer never reached its target; Luigi quickly jumped on top of Smithy and sent a strong jolt of Thunderhand into him. Luigi jumped back, helped his brother up, and prepared to fight Smithy, whom he had only heard of in dread tales until that night...

The spikes all over Metal Sonic began to glow brightly, when suddenly, he was hit from behind with what felt like a bullet. It didn't penetrate his armor, but it left a dent in the forehead of the robotic hedgehog. Metal Sonic turned around and saw Tails standing there, with the new nozzle attached to FLUDD.

"Back-up systems on-line," FLUDD stated. "Secondary power systems check completed, Bomber nozzle field test successful.

"You dare to challenge me?" the villain boasted. "Then you shall die along with my pathetic adversary!"

"Woah!" Sonic shouted. "You were able to stop him while he was using the Master Emerald?"

FLUDD responded, "Five-hundred thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure should be enough to stop just about anything."

"Half a million PSI?!" Tails shouted. "How is that possible?"

"Hold that thought," Sonic said. "I have a feeling Gramps isn't too interested in the details."

The Mario Bros. were a team once again, but that didn't even seem to scare Smithy in the least. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be smiling.

"The famed Mario Bros. of the Mushroom Kingdom! I must say, this is a treat!" Smithy laughed, then turned to Luigi and asked, "It's Luigi, isn't it?"

"Yahoo!" Luigi exclaimed in joy. "Someone actually knows me as something other than Mario's brother, or tall Mario, or green Mario, or or-"

"It is a shame that you both must share the same fate," Smithy interrupted. "For I now have the one power from this universe that rivals that of the Crystal Stars!"

"What? Is there such a thing?" Luigi asked.

"Yes," Mario said calmly. "The Shine Sprites."

"Correct," Smithy confirmed. "And now, they are all mine!"

Smithy then swiped his hammer low at both of the Mario Bros. but the plumbers jumped backwards to dodge the attack, doing so with ease.

"Why don't you try on this for size, then?" Smithy asked as he did his Spear Rain attack, rapidly forging tridents and quickly throwing them up in the air. One of them hit Mario in the left arm, pinning him to the ground.

"Get the Crystal Stars!" Mario told Luigi while pointing over to the large circle they had landed in. "They're our only hope!"

"Tails, use that water missile to shatter the shards of the Master Emerald," Sonic started. "If he's missing even a small piece of it, it'll be completely useless to him!"

"Affirmitive," said FLUDD. "However, it is called the Bomber Nozzle, not the water missile."

"Chaos Blast!" Metal Sonic shouted as he shot directly at FLUDD, making a direct hit and badly injuring Tails in the process.

"S-s-syst-t-t-tem f-f-failu-u-u-ure," FLUDD said weakly. "Aux-auxillary-ry-ry p-p-p-power s-s-source de-deplete-ed."

FLUDD shut down, as Metal Sonic turned to Sonic and laughed.

"Did you really think it would be that easy?" he asked. "Did you really think that you could defeat me with such a pathetic weapon?"

"I don't know what to say," Sonic said as he tried to sound as convincing as possible, "but maybe I've finally lost."

"You finally realize it. Now, give me the Chaos Emeralds if you wish to live."

Sonic picked them up, turned to Metal Sonic, and then handed them out to him. As Metal Sonic reached out to grab them, Sonic snatched his hand away and ran off towards Mario and Luigi.

Luigi was having trouble dodging all of the tridents that were now focused on him, and they kept coming even faster. But that didn't stop him from gathering up all seven Crystal Stars, as well as some cuts and bruises. When he had them all, he returned to Mario.

"Now what?" Luigi asked.

Sonic appeared out of a blur and pulled the trident out of Mario's arm.

"YEEEOWWIEEE!" Mario cried in pain. "You never pull out an item that deep into the skin unless a you're a professional doctor!"

"Um, Bro," Luigi laughed. "Why didn't you just pull it out yourself, then?"

Then, one last trident fell and pinned Luigi's right leg into the ground. Luigi handed the Crystal Stars to Mario.

Smithy and Metal Sonic were standing in the same spot, awaiting the heroes.

Mario turned to Sonic and said, "Neither of us can do this alone."

"Agreed," Sonic said. "We do this together!"

Then, the Crystal Stars and the Chaos Emeralds flew up and spun around. Then, a blinding light appeared, and when the light had died down, the two sources of power had merged into one: the Chaos Stars!

"What just happened?" Sonic asked. "I thought that the Crystal Stars and the Chaos Emeralds couldn't even be near each other, and now they've combined? What's going on here?"

"We can ask questions later," Mario said. "For now, we've got two universes to save!"

Then, the seven Chaos Stars glowed brighlty, and transformed the two heroes into their ultimate forms: Star Mario and Hyper Sonic.

"You ready to do this?" Mario asked.

"Whenever you are!" Sonic agreed as they both ran over to the evil being.

Without saying anything, Mario ran towards Metal Sonic, swiping at his legs. Metal Sonic quickly flew up to dodge the attack. Sonic followed him, using a Light Attack to knock the metallic hedgehog back to the ground.

Smithy used Arrow Rain, hitting Mario countless times, but doing nothing to the plumber. The arrows simply bounced off of him. Mario got right next to Smithy, and Smithy pounded Mario directly on his head with his hammer. The attack left a huge dent... in the hammer! Mario grabbed Smithy by the feet, and threw him into Metal Sonic. Sonic, in turn, ripped out the shards of the Master Emerald. Mario took the Shine Sprites from Smithy, and then the two heroes rushed off to tend to their wounded friends.

Epilogue: Goodbyes

Toadstool and Amy were found both locked up in one of the remaining towers. After everyone got back, Gadd insisted on showing everyone his newest invention immediately.

"Behold, the time manipulator, the thing that will get Sonic and his friends home, the Kronos Gateway!" Gadd shouted in glee as he unveiled what looked like a normal doorway, except round.

"Does it work?" Sonic asked.

"Yes, but we need the Crystal Stars," Gadd explained. "Mario, if you would, please."

"Sure thing," the plumber said as he placed the Crystal Stars in a slot. While they were waiting for the machine to start up, they heard Knuckles chanting.

"The servers are the seven Chaos," he recited the first line. "Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos."

The shards of the Master Emerald glowed brightly as they merged together.

"That should just about wrap things up!" Knuckles said.

"Thanks for everthing, guys, it's been real!" Sonic said as he was the first to step through the portal.

"Sonic! Wait for me! You never even proposed!" Amy said as she ran off to catch him.

"Some things never change," Knuckles shrugged.

"I'd still like to know how you got that water pump to let out half a million PSI," Tails said to Gadd. "But we've damaged the time-space continuum by being here, so I'll have to find out some other time."

"I'm glad that's over," Luigi said. "Although I must say, it was fun... but don't think you're going to drag me into another adventure any time soon!"

"Is the IDMET ready yet?" Bowser asked Robotnik.

"Yes, now prepare to see the proper way to construct a fortress of doom," Robotnik laughed. "To Mobiüs!"

The two of them ran through a portal similar to that of Gadd's but for the form of energy used to transport Sonic and his friends.

"Just as predicted, that leaves one more defeat before our victory, correct?" Metal Sonic asked.

"Yes, just as we were told, Bowser and Robotnik have escaped into Mobiüs," Smithy said. "We'll have to follow them soon."

"Yes, in a few weeks' time, we'll finally be ready to commence phase two of our plan," Metal Sonic agreed, and then thought to himself, And with the Kronos engine and the IDMET combined, even you will bow before me, fool!

The End?

**Hello everyone! It's me again, Yoshevil. Let me just explain to you what I'm planning for the sequel, Mario Vs. Sonic: Mobiüs Mania! **

**· The first appearance of Boo, James Boo, (or, at least storyline wise) a spy for... I'm not at liberty to reveal that information at this time. **

**· An exciting first chapter: Bowser Vs. Robotnik! **

**· Interdimensional battles galore including Mario Vs. Shadow and Sonic Vs. Wario! **

**· Continuation of the mysteries of the Chaos Stars, and maybe even some answers... maybe. **

**· Mario and Sonic teaming up. **

**So, I hereby conclude this story with my soon-to-be signature signoff!**

**End of Line**


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